Reading poetry personally, feels like understanding the emotions of the author intimately. The author's view on the emotions they feel is right in front of you. An author of a book can disconnect themselves from the feelings of the characters. Poetry is the author’s emotion. I don't feel like I always understand it (mostly because some use words I can't even say) but I get where they are coming from. It seems like the poet is telling you one of their most treasured secrets. I know that's a childish way to think of poetry but I enjoy viewing it that way.
There are many ways to write poetry. Some people believe that all poetry has to have rhyme and rhythm. This is not correct. While many ways to write poetry do involve different forms of rhyme and rhythm; free verse does not. The best way I can describe free verse is how a person would normally talk. There's no set of rules that need to be followed with free verse poetry. That doesn't make it easier to write. Which is another thing some people say, just because most poetry isn't the length of a book doesn't mean it's easy to write.
And with that sentence we move to the point of this post; why do I write poetry. Before I decided that I wanted to become an author, poetry was a way to get a lot of unfocused thoughts out of my head. At least 50% of the time what I wrote was bad. 30% was decent for my age but nothing special and the last 20% if cleared up is actually good. So I kept writing poetry and I got better. I stayed away from writing when it felt like my mind was too cluttered and actively picking out what I want to write about.
Although I do wish I could write more; I have this annoying habit of only liking to write when I have thought out ideas. I also have a collection of partly use notebooks that I need to pare down since that just clutters use space in my room. It's just annoying having notebooks that have several pages written in them and the rest of the notebook blank. So I would really like to get out of that bad habit. I would also like to be smarter. I feel like knowledge makes a better author and a greater understanding of the world will expand the experience that the people reading my work will have.
I do have times where I write bad poetry to just get it out. Then I'll be able to write something good again. There's a possible reason why tweens and teens don't like poetry. Which is all the bad unfiltered mess a good chunk of tweens and teenagers write. Most of the poetry was school work. While it's not all that good, it is a healthy way to process different emotions.
When I started writing poetry seriously, I felt like an emotional weight was lifted off my shoulders. It became more than a way to clear my mind of thoughts. I want to be able to connect with others through my emotions that I write on a page. It's a goal that I want to continue to strive for. That's all for this talk, be sure to keep an eye out for When does a Short Story become a Book? which is part two of the mini-series.
