Poetry, a musing.

In grade twelve my Writer's Craft teacher (who was also my archery coach) told me my poetry was full of "emotional splats," and that poetry should be refined and smooth - write a journal entry first, and then write the poem after. Needless to say, I didn't take his advice (I have a horrible time writing journal entries, I really do. Blogs are a bit different, but not by much. It mainly comes down to I can type faster than I can write by hand, and I can keep up with my thoughts.) It didn't matter a lot, he even said so himself - he was cool like that. He knew artists and writers needed their own styles and methods, and unlike a couple of my English teachers, was very specific about what he wanted to see in assignments and what NEEDED to be in each thing to make it the thing he was asking us to write, but other than that, pretty much everything was free game.

I did take what he said somewhat to heart, but not until after high school. Rereading poems I saw what he meant, but at the same time, I wasn't about to change the poems. Mainly because I figured that would change the meaning of what most of them were about. But it also got me thinking. Poetry is rather like sex. Some is smooth and refined, sensual; some is rough and raw. Others seduce you, and some just surprise you. Some are combinations, some are short, others are long. Some start hot, and stay hot, others start hot and fizzle to nothing. Some are written full of love, others meaningless and full of revenge. I could keep going, but I don't think it's necessary haha.

And of course now that I've written this I see the same thing I see when I try writing journal entries... and I think it comes from my English classes where everything was supposed to have a point/specific purpose, like an essay. We did A LOT of essay writing... yeah...

And now, a photo, which probably has very little to do with this post, but in some round about way it does...