Fourteen

Day Fourteen:  On all these empty streets…

On Writing Poetry…

I’ve decided to write a series of my thoughts about things, as if this entire blog wasn’t just my thoughts on things anyway, but this way I’ll have a topic and examples and it will be very academic and lovely.  As for today I want to talk a bit about how I write poetry, and how it is different from how I write fiction or blogs or anything else I write. 

There is this line from a poem I wrote last year that has been stuck in my head for two days now, and I think I’m going to share to you the poem and construct to you how I wrote it.  Let me post it as follows:

To me you the sea in flux
In warmth in soft design,
Hold me in your infinite salt bed,
Rocking against me,
Washing me, towards clarity.

When I go about starting to write a poem I start with one word.  In this case I believe I started with ‘flux,’ and the first line sort of formed from there.  I usually start with a feeling, or I think at this point it was a feeling about a person, although conflicted and confused and all kinds of emotions obviously arise as the poem goes along, I’ve found that the most I write about seems to be the same person, who will remain anonymous for the time being.  This poem is for that person though. 

Actually, that’s not really right.  Because I do write for someone, and that person is mainly for myself.  Not that I think I myself am the sea, but I think something like this creates the casm in which my own emotion is drawn into.  I look at my poems as ways for me to organise the philosophical moments and thoughts that occur inside of me and let them out.  In this case the first line completely drives the poem to what else can be said:  salt, rocking, the ocean, idea’s about being held and what it means to be rocked towards a clear mind.  I’ve been dealing with meditation and a peaceful mind for a long time now, a lot of my poetry sort of derives from my confusion around what it really means to have a clear head.

That’s an interesting point though, I start most of my poetry with not thinking anything and then a word appears.  I would love to assume my poetry erupts from a clear mind, but that is presumptuous and probabl very hopeful thinking.  In the mean time, I can say my poetry sometimes sucks, and sometimes rocks, and in this moment I am forever in love with this short poem.  I am proud enough to say that yup, I wrote that in probably two minutes, and yup, I’d probably submit that to some people who publish things and say that’s one of my best ones.

But poetry doesn’t always come easy.  I think I like to edit my poems more than I admit to, because once I give them a look-over, especially the poems that I may not be so fond of at first, certain words and phrases become clear in my head.  I don’t want to accuse writing poetry to meditation but it really is for me, it is a time where I can relaly get out what I want to get out.  In this poem I think the last line’s punctuation could still to this day be up for debate.  I actually hate punctuation in poetry, not to sound postmodernist (bs-bs-bs) or anything, but it assumes (as my acting prof told us this morning) that when a comma appears a breath must be taken.  I would rather that stigma disappear with my poetry, breathe when you need to, don’t turn purple over my poetry or anything.  I’d rather some kind of organic emotion than a traditional speech any day, so that is what my work tends to be.

At the risk of sounding overly hippie-ish this evening I must say that after all of this poetry writing and after a life-long hatred of reading it I have learned to love every simple form of poetry.  Even the descriptive, “new wave” that erupted in the early 2000’s (if you don’t know what I mean…I should write an entire other post for that…) to something as, how do you say, quaint, as T.S. Elliot.  I appreciate all poetry now, and I am proud to say it. 

The best part about my poetry?  I do it on my own.  No course, no guidelines, no googling “How to write poetry.”  Just Jessie, writing, probably with a pen because I prefer writing my poetry in a notebook (although some of my best work has come out of frustratingly boring classes and have been a microsoft-word baby), and enjoying it thoroughly.  I have grown into it a lot more even from my Twelfth grade writer’s craft course, because I called my chap book “Desolate Island” and it was a terrible attempt at being “deep,” I think I received a 73 % on that project, but I can say with confidence that I have improved since then.

As for this poem, it rocks my world, hope this has been enlightening and less boring than I think it might be.  I’m a handful for which I apologise.  I suppose the rest of this week will be me writing about something that I do, that’ll be…riveting I’m sure.  Alright, take care.

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