A Poem of One's Own
Hi readers! Your friendly caffeine junkie here. Grab your favorite coffee, cozy up, and let's talk poetry, I added a picture of my girl Virginia Woolf because who better to keep up company??? Woolf once said, "Arrange whatever pieces come your way", which is kind of like what poetry feels like, right? Piecing together fragments of our thoughts in a rhythm until it all makes sense.
Writing poetry and writing about poetry honestly felt like two sides of the same coin. When I was writing my own poems, it was all about feelings and just trying to get something real on the page. It flowed more naturally, like journaling but with more intention. Writing about poetry, though, especially when I was looking at Frost’s "The Road not Taken" slowed me down in a totally different way. I had to pay attention to line form, word choice, and tone. Stuff I never really thought about before. I had to ask questions like "What mood is he trying to create?" That made me start looking at my own poems differently too.
The cool part was how both sides fed into each other. Analyzing poetry made me notice little details I could use when I was writing, and writing poems made me appreciate just how hard those choices actually are for any writer.
One of my classmates even pointed out that the way our professor taught us by mixing writing poetry and writing about it was so much easier than other classes. We were so immersed in it that learning about different forms didn’t feel forced, it just kind of clicked.
I’m not planning on going into teaching, but if I ever did, I’d definitely use that same approach. Having students write poetry while also breaking it down helps us learn from both sides. Honestly, it just makes the whole process more fun and less intimidating.
Let me know your thoughts below. Looking forward to reading your replies! :)
Hi Trisha, I enjoyed reading your second blog! You immediately captured my attention with your introduction of Virginia Woolf. I completely agree with your thoughts on how writing poetry requires intention and how writing about poetry prompted you to consider literary elements such as tone and word choice. I especially appreciate how you mentioned that this process made you feel less intimidated because I felt the same way. I also enjoyed learning more about the poet I selected and loved that I got to choose both who and what I wanted to write about. As for writing the poem, I appreciated having a prompt since it can sometimes be difficult to decide what to write. I loved the three column structure and creating the poem into an “I” story. I felt free to explore different topics and emotions without feeling overwhelmed. I think that allowing students to explore a poet and their poem will help them write their own as they have learned about the structure and its literary elements.
ReplyDelete- Melissa Catalan
Hi Trisha, I enjoyed reading your thoughts and feelings on writing poetry! I thought it was really interesting that writing poetry came much more naturally to you than writing about poetry. For me, it was the complete opposite if I’m being honest. Like you said, writing poetry is essentially all about feelings and finding a clever way to put it into words. I think this is why I struggled quite a bit with figuring out what to write about. I went back and forth on a few of the lines because I wasn’t sure if they made sense or if they fit into the poem that well. I definitely think that writing about someone else’s poetry came easier to me but, like you also mentioned, I feel that it informed my own writing as well. I completely agree with you about the way these two assignments were put together making it easier to navigate. I think the fact that everyone in class was so supportive about the poetry made it much less intimidating to perform them.
ReplyDelete- Clarisa Rodriguez