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Last Breaths

by dogsrule5


Taking the last few breaths,

As I'm waiting to get on the block.

I pull my goggles over my eyes,

Getting ready to step up.

My stomach is filled with butterflies,

As the announcer says "take your mark."

I bend down getting ready to dive,

Taking my last breath before the whistle blows.

It blows, and I dive into the water,

Swimming as fast as I can.

I make it to the wall,

Launching myself from the turn,

Once again speeding off.

I begin to grow tired,

Breathing more, and more.

I start losing speed,

But I make it back to the wall.

I had finished the race.

I took a deep breath,

And got out of the water.

I exit the pool, breathing heavily.

My opponent looks at me.

"Good job," I say.

I walk away,

Wrapping myself in my towel,

And wait for my next event to do it again.


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130 Reviews

Points: 2667
Reviews: 130

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Fri Oct 28, 2016 6:21 pm
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Em101cats wrote a review...



Hi!!! (Whew it's been a while since I wrote a review, I need to do this more often)
By the way, thanks for tagging me on your wall!

This was a really fun work to read; it was really upbeat and I love how you leave the ending rather open so readers can decide for themselves who they think won! (Personally, I think it was you ;) ) It was a short but sweet poem and I like your simple wording. It creates a nice simplicity to the poem, which is good especially because some writers tend to shove too much elegant wording into poems and they get difficult to comprehend. A great poem should have a blend of very descriptive imagery and more simple imagery and I think you did great with that!

I think most of the things that could be improved were already touched upon by other reviewers. There isn't much that needed to be fixed anyway as this was a great work!

For example, someone already talked about the capitalization and punctuation as well as the possible use of stanzas to help the poem flow better. This is a good suggestion and I second that. The poem seems to be alright stanza-wise but if you want to try separating some of the parts I think it could be helpful to the poem overall. Sometimes without stanzas the flow gets messed up, and a little separation could never hurt as long as you do it right. I suggest following the suggestions below! They did a great job of giving examples.

That's all I have (I know, I did a pretty bad job on this one but I'm a little rusty and also on a time crunch). All I have to say is awesome job, and keep up the great writing!!




dogsrule5 says...


XD it's fine! Thanks for the review and I'm glad you liked the poem.



Em101cats says...


You're welcome! :)



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55 Reviews

Points: 158
Reviews: 55

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Sat Oct 22, 2016 10:23 pm
all wrote a review...



Hello, here for a review.

As a competitive swimmer, I will say you have captured the essence of swim meet emotions. The "butterflies" mention is fantastic.

My first criticism would be that the capitalization and punctuation is not as perfect as it could be.

Taking the last few breaths,

As I'm waiting to get on the block.

I pull my goggles over my eyes,

Getting ready to step up.


The first four lines have commas after the first and third, yet the second and fourth lines have capital letters. I would either work on removing the capitalization after each period or fixing some punctuation.

Secondly, I think that the whole poem would flow better if you put stanzas in between some lines. For example this is a way you could incorporate stanzas,

"Taking the last few breaths,

As I'm waiting to get on the block.

I pull my goggles over my eyes,

Getting ready to step up.


My stomach is filled with butterflies,

As the announcer says "take your mark."

I bend down getting ready to dive,

Taking my last breath before the whistle blows.


It blows, and I dive into the water,

Swimming as fast as I can.

I make it to the wall,

Launching myself from the turn,


Once again speeding off.

I begin to grow tired,

Breathing more, and more.

I start losing speed,

But I make it back to the wall.

I had finished the race.


I took a deep breath,

And got out of the water.

I exit the pool, breathing heavily.


My opponent looks at me.

"Good job," I say.


I walk away,

Wrapping myself in my towel,

And wait for my next event to do it again."

Just a suggestion on how you could chop up the poem a bit.

Lastly, this is a great poem no more criticism here. The way you wrote this makes me feel like I'm ready to race again, great job. Best of luck on your other pieces of work!




dogsrule5 says...


Thanks for the review! Are you a competitive swimmer as well? I'm also glad you liked my poem! Thanks for the tips!



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44 Reviews

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Reviews: 44

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Sat Oct 22, 2016 5:48 pm
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Rosella wrote a review...



Hi there! DeepRoses here for a small review/opinion. Hope you like this crappy review

OOOOH competitive swimming! Something I have only seen in an anime (excuse my trashiness haha). This is the first poem I have read about swimming and I think you did a good job capturing the feeling and energy in this. I also like how it is a free verse poem, it sort of fits with the topic.

I also wanted to say how I like how this poem is a story, as it tells a sequence of events and is told in a first person point of view.

aaaand I think the title was a good idea! It caught my eye and made me intrigued with what the poem was going to be about :)

One lil thing I wanted to address though with the super simplistic word choice. Of course, this could be just your style. But sometimes the simple easy-to-read words, aren't so pleasing to the eye and doesn't catch the readers attention. I feel as if you used deeper word choice, it would have really captured the feelings and emotions you wanted to send off with the poem.

Overall I wanted to say good job on the title, idea, concept, story line, and overall the structure of it. Word choice is not a huge deal when writing poetry but It is always nice to use metaphors and such to make it more interesting and fun to read.

Sorry this review is soo short, but I hope you keep up the good work and have a good day!




dogsrule5 says...


Thanks for the review! I'm also glad you really liked my poem! I'm not the best at word choice, but I'm working on it!



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10 Reviews

Points: 25
Reviews: 10

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Sat Oct 22, 2016 4:54 pm
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Anico146 wrote a review...



This poem is really good! I love the way it flows and how the imagery is purely amazing. My favorite line is

"As I'm waiting to get on the block.

I pull my goggles over my eyes,

Getting ready to step up.

My stomach is filled with butterflies,

As the announcer says "take your mark."

I bend down getting ready to dive,

Taking my last breath before the whistle blows.

It blows, and I dive into the water,

Swimming as fast as I can.

I make it to the wall,

Launching myself from the turn,

Once again speeding off."

Honestly, I love the whole poem. Like I've said before, the imagery is beautiful and purely amazing. Great job!




dogsrule5 says...


Thanks I'm so glad you liked it!




Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.
— Ann Landers