Thank you so very much. I can't tell you how greatful i am.

Hey, no problem, honest, I just don't want to see anyone give up hope. Fiver said you were in need, so I figured the least I could do was offer words of care. I'm just glad that you liked it.

well thank you very much

lovely.... i dont read much poetry, i just randomly clicked on this one, and i am very happy i did... it's lovely

Thank you ^.^ There are lots of good artists on FA, both in writing and drawing, you should try to read more if you get the chance.

well i didnt read that much, cause my english is kinda bad.... and it takes me a long time to read stuff, but i think ill try more now that i see that there is some really good stuff here

now that was just lovely...

V.

Coming from you, that is an honor, thank you Vixyy

Very touching. I use to write poetry all the time for a dear friend.

Then after she passed...I kind of got away from it. This was a very good sonnet. You have my accolades and respect. Excellent job.

Very much thanx kind wolf.

To lovely to express in words the feeling it gives.

So are you hun.

*giggles* so are you, lover boy.

very nice way you expressed feelings in this poem Dethfox

I must have done something right then *giggles* Thank you vurry much Wolffie.

:( I don't want to be the bad guy offering thoughts on something that has touched others, so I hope this comes across as constructive (since you invited critique on it).

The informality of the rhyming structure is nice. It's not quite blank verse, because there is rhyme, but it's not a strict form. It's almost A B B C D C E A B E E A F quasi-F at first read. However, this seems like casual verse so the use of rhyme as something to complete thoughts, not just fit structure, works well.

The opening line has a bit of redundancy, and I'm not sure it's meant intentionally. Dawn and the sunrise are inextricably linked. The dawn is the first period of light as a result of the rising sun.

Having imperative voice at the start and end provides a nice sense of closure and purposefulness. It reminds me of the soft-spoken imperatives of McCartney near the end of the Beatles, in "Golden Slumbers" (Dylan Thomas influenced that song, of course) and "Hey Jude."

Search for the sunrise that comes with the dawn,
Then bathe in light, inspired by awe.
'Tis a shining Spring with power to thaw,
The harshest of winters relentless brawls.

In the first stanza, the comma at the end of the third line may be unnecessary, because it breaks up the infinitive with its object. "power to thaw the harshest of winter's [apostrophe needed] relentless brawls"

The "relentless brawls" image seems a bit out of place. Winter is rarely depicted as a constant violence, unless you mean a blizzard. It's an image that begs to be explored a bit more.

A rainbow in spirit, sent by God,
To you as a sign that he loves all;
Reassure, for you have done no wrong;
To keep up your strength and you will move on.

Is the "rainbow" meant to be dawn?

"Reassure" seems like it needs an object, or a passive voice ("be reassured"). Grammatically, it seems out of place as is. Likewise, "to keep up" seems like it ought to be just a command, not an infinitive.

As you lay now, in your bed of straw,
Your son beside you and reading this song,
Know that good-bye is not always 'so-long';
That you can not end a life well drawn.

After the Noah reference, one assumes that the opening line is a reference to Mary in the manger. In the second line, the "and" makes things a bit ambiguous - is it the son reading? "As you read" might fit better.

If you're going to put so-long in quotes, you might want to do the same with good-bye. That line is sentimental but welcoming, though I'm not sure what "well drawn" (possibly "well-drawn") means in context. Perhaps the connection to divine symbols in the sky can be strengthened.

So take a breath, letting life you breathe,
Rather than burden, fill you with ease.

I like these lines, but the lack of an article or other modifier in front of "life" makes it a bit unclear. "Letting the life you breathe" I assume is the implication, but the first read is a bit awkward.

Let's see, I'll start with your first point. Yes, the rhyme scheme is unrestricted, and yes it does fit your proposed scheme. Therefore, it's not definitive of a rulebook Sonnet. Rather, I decided to stretch rules a bit, and made this a 'Sonnet of Assonance', by rather than repeating end-sounds I repeated vowel sounds at the ends of the successive line.

The first line, with the redundant 'Dawn and Sunrise' are also purposeful. Dawn being the initiative of the search, and sunrise being the beauty to be found by the search. This is also an allusion to searching for inner beauty, because dawn will come whether the sun existed or not, it just wouldn't be beautiful.

Winters does not need an apostrophe, because it is not a single winter it is representative of more than one winter.

" '...relentless brawls' seem out of place. Winter is rarely depicted as constant violence." Let's see if I can re-phrase it for you :) Winter is often representative of death; death is relentless, because you can't stop it. Also, though winter is not always brawling, it says "the harshest of winters relentless brawls." This does not say that 'winter is always brawling', it says that 'with winters come some relentless brawls', and when coupled with the line before, 'A spring to thaw', it is not thawing winter, it is thawing winter's relentless brawls. If winter is death and spring is life, this is representative of one's struggle to stay alive.

Verse 2 is a complete reiteration of verse 1, the sunrise, is the spring, is the rainbow. Though I might question you as to whether this re-edited verse works better:

This rainbow in spirit, sent by God,
Comes forth as a sign that he loves all;
To reassure you have done no wrong;
To keep up your strength and help you move on.

???

The third verse is more personalized to suit the specific recipient of the poem. Interpret the bed of straw how you will, I was thinking more of a homely type caring as in a hospital. It is her son who was doing the whole, make his mom feel good deal, so I figured it was him who was going to read it to her. Well-drawn means that you did enough with your life, it was good enough to make an impact, and therefore can not end.

ok last two lines... The reason that there is not an article in front of life is the same reason that in math, a number without a negative in front of it (-93) is assumed to be a positive; even though there is no + in front of number. No matter what kind of life you are breathing, it would have an article, but the absence of one epresses that 'life' is not limited, therefore it can be anything. If it were 'the life' or 'a life' it would be specific life, which is not what I want it to mean.

Thank you for your highly valuable input Jersey :) I hope my explanations help.

I wrote all of that and didn't hit reply to your post. x.x I also realize there are several grammatical errors in my post, I hope they aren't too distracting, (-93) is not seen as positive, it is a negative number, (93) is what I should have typed, but it took long enough just to type things, so please understand.

No worry, I hate how on FA I can't edit posts. I make grammar errors left and right. On a recent comment to someone, I left out a verb.

I like that reworked stanza. I'm glad my comments were constructive.

And I forgot to highlight: "bed of straw" is a very good allusion and clause, it works well in the poem.

Starts out neatly dactylic, and eases into a sort of sprung meter-- the scansion isn't strict, but it reads pretty well, which is what counts. Anyway, I'll just lob a few ideas about tidying up the meter a bit, first:

First Stanza: second line, could you add "the" before "light?" Third line: couldn't you get away with just omitting "'Tis"? Second stanza, first line: if it doesn't butcher the rhyme or the sense you had in mind, replacing God with "the Lord" preserves that dactylic feel too. So would "Your God," maybe. And what about ending the second line with "Everyone" instead of "all?"

So, as for how it reads for meaning, a couple things are jarring: you kind of drop the metaphor of winter as a brawl on us without any warning in the first stanza. I know there's a question of rhyming, I don't know how that could be fixed, unless you could find someplace to slip in a "peacetime" reference.

The last two lines of the second stanza bug me, because I think you want "Reassuring," or something, but the syntax of that thought just... doesn't work yet.

The last two lines of the third stanza also bug me, but because I'm not sure I get what the difference is between "good-bye" and "so-long," and "well drawn," is completely lost on me too. I just read this part and don't have any idea what's meant-- which is fine if there's something intentionally concealed about the intended audience for the poem, but ordinary readers won't get anything out of it.

Last, since this is both meter and syntax: "So take a deep breath. Let the life that you breathe/rather than burden you fill you with ease," returns to a very clear dactyllic rythm. And it avoids stretching so far away from ordinary speech (omitting the "you.")

All in all, it's a good poem that sounds like it has something worth saying and isn't overly self-conscious. But I think there're points where it plays really loose with syntax to the point of breaking. And for a form like a sonnet that's usually pretty strictly metered, the meter here breaks down a bit too often. Both issues could probably be remedied.

Thank you very much Furth I appreciate that input. I also appreciate some of the compliments I got where I did somethings that were good. As far as meter goes, I'd like to learn more about it. I know it's stressed and unstressed syllables, but I haven't been able to find anything that explains it very well. I need to get a teacher or someone who knows what they're doing to sit down and go over it with me. Until then, I will never quite fully master poetic form. Though I do hope I can refine my skills of observance, so that I can incorporate that into my works. Again, thank you for your input.

Well, obviously meter's something everybody's got an opinion about-- Jersey and I've already discussed it extensively in my journal post.

I think one of the best teachers we've all got access to is the habit of saying things aloud. My "mental ear" is pretty decent, but whenever I'm making a serious effort, saying a poem aloud is a must. You can learn a lot about meter reading almost any (non-modernist) poet aloud, if you already get the basic idea of stressed and unstressed syallables-- Shakespeare and Frost would be my picks, just because they're so accessible and relevant.

Reading good poets aloud, you also get a good sense of how far you can push the envelope-- because those guys aren't super-strict. Nobody writes in absolutely strict meter. Without a lot of luck or a completely mangling what you were trying to say, totally strict meter would be impossible or sound stupid.

You obviously have a feel for it. And it's not like artists develop a perfect sense of human proportions right away.

In the end, meter in English is fairly simple: start with a rythm ("metrical foot") that consists of either two or three syllables, with a stressed syllable at either the beginning or the end (which makes four basic rhythms: iambs _X, trochees, X_, dactyls X_ _, and anapests _ _X.), to repeat over and over. That's the backbeat. Then, you make a decision about splitting this repeating rythm into lines, either because you're using rhymes at the end of each line to establish more sense of rythm, and/or because you intend most lines (of the same length) to each encompass a more or less complete idea, in a way that would make it normal to pause in speech at the end of lines. In music that would be the time signature.

Then you compose in roughly that rythm, knowing that sometimes you're going to reverse the beat temporarily, or gloss over syllables that should be there, or whatever. (There're even technical poetry terms for various kinds of "cheating," e.g., inversion, catalexis, scud. Which is how you know it's not really cheating.)

Another way to double-check your meter as you compose is to just use a notation on paper. Dashes and Xes, or whatever... above or below each line or in the margin. It helps me a lot to just keep track on the paper I'm writing stuff down on.

I particularly like the last two lines of this.

Thankyou Thankyou ^.^