Blog Post 3- Poetry Packet 2

So this week I have looked over our second poetry packet and realized that a lot of the poems are close to very difficult mental puzzles. I have read a few poems multiple times and it has taken a great deal of effort to derive any meaning from them. On that stands out to me is Susan Howe's poem that is all jumbled up among the page. After examining with my peers in class we believe that it has something to do with the the French and Indian war. Susan Howe was a poet whom tended to write a lot about American History.

After being puzzled by Susan's poem for sometime and researching various words and phrases used in her poem I realized that I have spent nearly 20 minutes reading the same poem. I have been learning small facts about the names of old Native American cities and the tribes that resided in them. It seems if Susan was attempting to force me into educating myself by using her poetry to inspire a search for answers, she had surely won. Then I inferred that there are so many poets throughout the world, that to get noticed you have to make your poems memorable. Susan Howe's poems have surely left an impression on me.

Langston Hughes also interested me greatly. His poems seemed very simple, but the way he used his southern dialect throughout the poems seemed to give it a rhythm. Writing poetry in a dialect that doesn't seem normal to someone else has always made writing pop off the page to me. I personally struggle with dialect because it is hard for me to write with dialect without offending someone. Sometimes I take the dialect a little to the extreme and it comes off unintentionally stereotypical.

Finally, in terms of my own writing I realized that I had trouble writing our assigned poems. It is easy for me to write out multiple poems without thinking about it, but that wasn't our assignment. Having to use 20 words in a single poem and tie them together with one main idea is not easy task. When I write out a whole poem and see my work I realize that I don't like what I wrote. I was stripped of my free creative writing and had to adapt to being creative in a flexible manor and be able to shape the 20 words into a verbal sculpture. I am still working on my "sculpting" abilities but with time I am sure I will do well.

In conclusion the more we delve into poetry the more I realize how much I am perplexed by it. Poetry is surely one of the most intriguing forms of literature to me. However, it is not the easiest thing to write, and above all it is not easy to write a poem that is memorable to some. Just like everyone has their own taste in music, we all favor different types of poetry, just as one band doesn't appeal to everyone, no one poet will appeal to everyone.

Poetry

 

 

It doesn't take a scholar to write poetry, nor does it take a literature major to understand it. To understand and write poetry you just need a pen, some paper, and your emotions to guide you. I use to believe that I loathed poetry. That was until I learned that poetry doesn't have to be confined to the chivalrous poems of love that we read in old knight tales and Valentines Day cards. Poetry can be heart aching, painful, and be used to describe emotions that haunts our every day lives, I enjoy that pure raw poetry.

In the poetry packet we were assigned to read I felt myself drawn to the poem Where It Passes, Untouchable. "The print of my palm would be the shape of blood", this line depicts my favorite aspect of poetry. I love symbolism and am quite intrigued when writers use them in unusual ways that still make complete sense. Beyond that the greatest symbols that inspire me are that of our own human anatomy. The most common symbol derived from our bodies tends to be, in my opinion, blood. Symbolically blood can be a beautiful thing, or a treacherous image. My favorite instances where blood is used symbolically is to depict love, whether it was the loss of, or gaining of love.

 

Though I can't determine what blood symbolizes, if anything, from the passage in our packet, I can't help but fancy the statement. Instead of saying his blood is the shape of his palm he intentionally flipped it. Why? Sometimes I just like to not try and read between the lines and just say that it sounded poetic or they left it to intentionally confuse us, thus making us spend more time reading to decipher there words. That's why I love poetry, it is so wide open for individual interpretation.

 

The other line that caught my eye from another poem, which the name of is presently escaping me , was "when silence turns to summer". I interpreted this as a great example of symbolism. I believe either a silence was being broken, or most likely Winter was ending and Summer was beginning. But those are just two of millions of possible interpretations. In all honesty the line reminds me of the lyrics in the music I favor, which is just another form of poetry. Poetry is truly all around us, you just have to learn to see it and truly appreciate it.

 



My Relationship to Writing

    I have been writing since I was six years old, though I honestly despised it until I was thirteen years old. I began drawing miniature comics for all of my friends throughout elementary school, but lost interest somewhere in junior high school. I had no interest in writing until I met my 9th grade English teacher Mrs. Garcia whom created a spark which ignited an intense passion for writing.

Mrs. Garcia introduced me to all new genres of literature which inspired me to expand my style of writing from gothic/romantic novels, to poetry that closely resembles Edgar Allan Poe, to scholarly articles. I came to excel in my writings that I achieved my school's department award for English Language Arts in the 10th grade. I had Mrs. Garcia as my teacher from my freshman year until my junior year and every year I was given special assignments that were far more difficult than the work my classmates were assigned.

 

     Throughout high school I was constantly challenged to adapt and sharpen my writing skills for various writing assignments. The hardest essay I had to write was a scholarly article debating the existence of Haitian zombies, and then I had to compare the Haitian myths to modern zombies in todays media. My favorite genre to write is horror and poetry. I am greatly inspired by my two favorite pieces of literature, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven.  I hope in this creative writing course I can challenge myself to take my writing to the next level and discover new styles of writing. I strive to be an author and having a book published before I finish my undergraduate studies. All in all I hope this class helps me grow as a writer and aids in the creation of a future great author within myself.