peer review

Closely read, critique, and offer revision and editing suggestions for at least 4 of your classmates’ original creative nonfiction pieces. Offer line-by-line suggestions in parentheses, specific areas that require revision, and a 100-word balanced summation with your assessment of the strong components for each of the submissions you review. 

Inspire and Grace  Collapse         

Inspire (free verse)

A summer drought destroys an autumn harvest.

A winter freeze kills a crop of citrus.

So too distractions destroy inspiration

The busyness of life suffocates creativity.

A thief comes at night when you least expect,

When you’re least prepared.

So too inspiration comes when you’re not ready.

Emotions scurry in and out of the heart,

Changing direction on a whim.

They yell inside us: “say this” or “do that.”

Even when we know they’re wrong, we trust them.

We trust our hearts to give us emotions that are true

Despite their deceitful nature,

Despite their fleeting existence.

We lie in wait for ‘how it feels.’

But without emotion,

How might we find inspiration?

Would we learn to trust something else that we ought not?

Or would we wait for the thief in the night?

Grace (a sonnet)

To give to someone what they do not earn

Can be understood simply as grace, you see.

Among the fruit, patience is one you may learn.

Give grace to others, so that you may find,

A world full of kindness is there to thee.

People will come to trust you more in time.

Give grace to others, that you discover,

Failures and faults, problems and sins all flee

From the love that’s shown when grace is forever.

To give yourself that same kind of grace,

Will surely entice a new kind of joy.

In freedom you may walk at a new pace.

Forgive your failures, forget your old way,

Authentic life comes through authentic grace.Inspire and Grace