The tree Ballet

I saw a tree move

It glides back and forth

Vertically expressing its horizontal desire; it started to dance

The wind making its movements legal

Its slender arms though tough are gliding smoothly up and

Carelessly

Descend

Downwards

as though all its energy is now dried up

Its bright ever green leaves wink at me

Capturing my undivided attention

Drawing me into its ballet

I stand across from it, examining this tree

This tree of life, energy, movement

All which radiates off and embraces onlookers

All I see when I look at this tree is

You

Your energy, your life, your movement

Where I found my comfort

My save refuge once taken for granted

The ever-green leaves from its tree, broken

Now I return to you in the form of these words

That were left unspoken.

Well I'll start with saying this is my first review; I hope I have some useful insight for you.

I can definately grasp the foundation of various imagery used to help deliver a message. However, I am left feeling unsure of what you mean to convey in this piece. My overall impression after reading it, is that you took the time to describe imagery of a "dancing" tree to convey the simplicity in natural beauty that is so often overlooked.

Its bright ever green leaves wink at me

The ever-green leaves from its tree, broken

Was the full break in the word in the first and the semi break with a hyphen in the second for an intentional effect? Otherwise, the official word it is evergreen, if I am not mistaken.

My save refuge once taken for granted

Perhaps you meant that your safe refuge was once taken for granted?

Next, the tense is all over the place. There seems to be little connection or consistency throughout the progression of the piece.

I saw a tree move

You start with a past tense (I saw...)

It glides back and forth

Then change to a present tense (it glides...)

Vertically expressing its horizontal desire; it started to dance

Then next present a combination of past and present tenses with a semicolon? (expressing; started)

Also, and I might be mistaken, but I believe "vertically expressing" is a dangling modifer clause. It doesn't seem to obviously modify the possessive pronoun subject "its". This line actually gave me the most "grief" in my review. I might have spent more time on trying to figure out why it seems to odd and reads so unnaturally, than the rest of my review. I'm not intending to be mean here, but I am building up to another important point.

Semantically speaking, this is a mess. In all forms of writing, semantics take a much larger precedence than they do in most other methods of communication. They also make for some of the hardest things "to put your finger on". The issues with just your third line stuck out so clearly, because it seemed so ambiguously out of place. It bugged me that it stood out so much, that figuring out why it stood out "stole the show" for a while.

The wind making its movements legal

Does the word choice of legal add to the piece and achieve the intended effect? The word legal evokes a wide array of common connotations: associations with the law, seriousness, police, officials, government, and a general "coldness". If I had to guess, you are trying to contrast the qualities of nature with those of civilization? Or is it, that the presentation of the tree is more of an allusion to a loved one? It's not good to leave your reader's guessing so much.

Its slender arms though tough are gliding smoothly up and

This is a mouthful to say, and it does feel like you squashed a necesssary contrast (They are tough arms, despite being slender), for an uncertain purpose in following three lines:

Carelessly

Descend

Downward

Seperating linked words and thoughts into short, broken up lines is very unnatural when it comes to language. It is best used when trying to protray something unnatural or unnerving. Think of William Shatner playing the role of "Captain Kirk" on the original Star Trek series. To paraphrase an example with text: "I. Do not. know if! we. will make. it! though. this. ordeal." Shatner's tendancy to overplay a role aside, you can see that presentations like this sound "robotic". It's like the speaker cannot speak more than two syllables at a time.

Because of how unnatural this technique is, it does work well to grab your reader's attention. However, it is not clear why the reader's attention is being drawn to the middle three words breaking up a complete thought. This can end up working against the author by unintentionally annoying and/or misleading their audience. Be careful with the simple, yet powerful, techniques.

Who is the subject "you" that appears in the latter part of the piece, and why is it introduced on a seperate line?

You

Does it refer to the tree, the speaker, the reader, or something else? It's not clear with any of the context given. The same goes for what "I" refers to through the piece. Do you mean to present this piece in more a retrospective 1st person account, or as a present tense account of a 1st person perspective? Is the speaker speaking of the tree to the tree, or to themselves? Who is the speaker exactly?

I do think you have a good idea here. I did enjoy your playing with contrasting the natural to the artificial with your word choices; however, if you intended to carry this out with the semantics, I think you went a bit too far.

Any amount of bad sticks out like a sore thumb, while the good is too easily overshadowed. It is too easy to allow a small oversight become the sole focus for your audience. It does help to keep this in mind when you recieve feedback. Poetry is an especially a tricky balancing act between evoking curious ambiguity and retaining meaning. As with generally all writing, you should be able to keep things vague enough to keep your audience's interest, but not so vague that you leave them with more questions than meaning.

With that said, don't be discouraged by my words. I am well aware they will likely come across as far more scathing than I ever intended.

I liked this. It was different.
I do however, believe it could be more powerful, I like the detail but I do think it was slightly lacking. I could feel my attention wander slightly.
The structure was nice though. It was different and refreshing and it did also fit with the poem itself.
A beautiful piece.
Well done.

This piece was beautiful. It was very original and creative. I loved your use of personification.

I saw a tree move I don't know about this line. It seems to ordinary and dry. It doesn't really fit with the rest of the poem. Not a good level of energy so it doesn't really hook the reader.

It glides back and forth

Vertically expressing its horizontal desire; it started to dance

The wind making its movements legal

Its slender arms though tough are gliding smoothly up and

Carelessly

Descend

Downwards

as though all its energy is now dried up

Its bright ever green leaves wink at me It should be evergreen

Capturing my undivided attention

Drawing me into its ballet

I stand across from it, examining this tree

This tree of life, energy, movement

All which radiates off and embraces onlookers

All I see when I look at this tree is

You

Your energy, your life, your movement

Where I found my comfort

My save refuge once taken for granted

The ever-green leaves from its tree, broken Once again it should be evergreen, but I think you should edit this line. Hearing evergreen again sounded repetative.

Now I return to you in the form of these words Very original. Well done.

That were left unspoken.

This truly was a beautiful piece. Overall I loved it. Keep it up and PM me for anything!

Hi there thank you so much for your review on my poem:) just wanted to thank you for the corrections i have adjusted them:) and i apretiate it and also wanted to explain the first line, i know it seems like a dull line but this poem was written for a friend that i lost through a silly argument and then i regained that friend again and we were talking about poetry and i said i can write a poem about anything so she said ok start a poem with "I saw a tree move" and so i did and she became my tree and this poem became a tribute to her:) and the fact that i used "evergreen leaves" again is to show that the friendship has not changed and that it is still exactly the way it used to be:) and the three adjectives on its on gives the image on the it "decending"...A lot of things that you guys have picked out as errors are actually done on purpose but im sure you did not understand it till i explained:) but i do thank you guys:)

Hi there, Niko! I'm finally here- sorry it took me so long.
Okay, so I'm going to make a couple of points, and then head right into a line-by-line critique.
1. Structure:
For some reason, I always find this type of spacing really awkward to read. It makes the piece feel infinitely long, and a little bit disconnect. Each line feels like it should stand alone when they're spaced out so widely. I know this seems like a lot to take away from stanza aesthetics, but they really are important. Below, I have removed your spacing and separated it into stanzas. Please keep in mind that these aren't definite changes, but are simple suggestions, maybe even guidelines for the future.
I separated it into stanzas because while the spaced out look is somewhat intimidating, so is the "big black dense wall of black" look. It's better to condense and then spread it out in a few selected areas to lessen intimidation altogether.

2. Punctuation:
You don't really have punctuation here. Punctuation is important, mostly for one reason: flow. This allows the reader to pick up on the flow of your words, and pay attention to the context more than anything else. If you don't have punctuation, it often leaves the reader floundering in your lines, wondering, "Where is the intonation, the emphasis? Is it all important? Where do I go, where does this thought end, where does the next begin?"
Punctuation can be done several ways. Personally, I'm a fan of punctuating my poetry as I would a paragraph, though it really is up to you.

Okay: I've covered those things. Now to the critique.

I saw a tree move
It glides back and forth In order to help the flow here, I would say "gliding" instead of "it glides". This allows your last thought to continue directly onto the next line, easing this into one tone without any jarring.
Vertically expressing its horizontal desire; it started to dance Nice placement of your semi-colon. The first clause in this line though, feels a bit awkward. The words "vertically" and "horizontal", while providing nice parallelism, don't really seem to fit the tone and word choice of this poem.
The wind making its movements legal "legal" feels like kind of an awkward word here
Its slender arms (comma here? though tough comma here?are gliding smoothly up and I really like this line!

Carelessly

Descend

Downwards
I spaced out the previous three lines-- I really like the concept and shape you conveyed here. Really interesting use of structure, and I really think it works, though you might considering why you want so much emphasis here. Is it key to the poem or something?

as though all its energy is now dried up You are trying to convey a feeling of immortality and vitality in the next line, yes? Why then are you using this imagery, which immediately makes me think of dried up and brittle leaves?
Its bright ever green leaves wink at me Love the personification here
Capturing my undivided attention This line feels a bit awkward here. I think that if you want to keep it, you should allow some more imagery into it, to make it more powerful.
Drawing me into its ballet

I stand across from it, examining this tree
This tree of life, energy, movement I think you could remove the repeated "this tree".
All which radiates off and embraces onlookers But what exactly is it radiating?
All I see when I look at this tree is

You Nice emphasis.

Your energy, your life, your movement
Where I found my comfort I think that we need visuals of a place for you to say this: it sounds weird and it's hard to imagine someone finding comfort in someone else's movement if you don't provide imagery.
My save refuge once taken for granted
The ever-green leaves from its tree, broken I don't really understand this line.
Now I return to you in the form of these words
That were left unspoken.

One last thing I noticed, somewhat back on the topic of punctuation: you capitalized some lines and didn't others, seemingly at random. Without punctuation, that ends up just being distracting, especially because there doesn't seem to be a pattern to it.
Overall, this was a very nice read. I think that you could incorporate some more emotion and imagery into it, and really try to allow the reader to enter the world you've created. Good job though! Let me know if you have any questions or anything.
-Coral-