Poetry Analysis vs. Creating Poetry
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Switching from writing about poetry to creating poetry was a very interesting experience for me. I don’t have much experience with creative writing. I’ve only taken one creative writing class in my academic journey, which was a short story writing class at a community college. I’ve never written poetry before. On the other hand, I have lots of experience in academic writing and analyzing poetry. As English majors, this is simply second nature to us.
I did not find any direct similarities between writing about poetry and writing poetry itself. However, analyzing a poem in depth made me realize the major components that make a piece of literature poetry. Looking at key details in a popular poem made it clear to me how to provide readers with an experience that evokes certain emotions, memories, thoughts, and more. Therefore, when I was working on my own poems, I made sure to use words that truly immerse readers in that moment, not just describe it. I also made sure to incorporate a bit of flowery language. Writing poetry made me realize how much poetry captures a single moment and strives to immerse its readers in it.
Furthermore, writing poetry made me realize the extensive creative freedom one has when creating it. I did not choose to follow any specific rhyme or reason. I just wrote with the intention of using language to provide an experience, and I did follow the general structure of a list poem. This creative freedom is in stark contrast to academic writing for me, and I enjoyed it.
What I learned from this experience that I could use in my future teaching career is to provide a nice balance of academic and creative writing in my classroom, as this will help my students better understand one another. I have noticed that, when it comes to literary devices, it can be challenging to identify them in a text, and it may become clearer if they make use of them in their own creative writing.
Hi Natalie! I also did not have much experience with poetry, especially compared with analyzing literature. These experiences felt so so different from each other! I also really enjoyed the freedom of writing a poem. The freedom is definitely something to get used to after writing essays which follow a generally similar organizational pattern, but it was very liberating! I think a balance of academic and creative writing would be wonderful for students, especially because it would help them express themselves in a variety of different ways and encourage critical thinking.
ReplyDeleteFrom Lily Searcy : )
DeleteHi Natalie!
ReplyDeleteI am not the most poetically inclined person. In fact, I've only just started to feel neutral-positive about it in recent years; however, I really liked your description of poetry as something that captures a single moment. There's something so moving about that idea. It makes me think of (although this may seem like a stretch) the Cueva de los Manos. You have probably seen this cave painting before even if you don't recognize the name--it's a collage of hundreds of hands, stenciled on cave walls. If you know about it, forgive me!
Anyway, this is the image that comes to mind for me. I think it's a very human thing to want to pull other people into our "moment," to say "I'm here," to try to prove our own significance. This is one of the reasons poetry escapes me, haha. Anyway, sorry for babbling under your post!! (P.S. I really liked your poem about running).
- Evan
Hi Natalie,
ReplyDeleteI, like you, have only taken one creative writing class (which was back in community college), leaving me quite inexperienced with writing creative works, let alone poetry. In fact, I have never been keen on poetry, but I can say that this class has altered my perception of the poetic arts. I still do not know much about the technicalities of poetic conventions, nor can I draft a poem with conventional suave, but I definitely understand poetry more after writing about poetry and drafting my own poem. Similarly to your experience with writing your personal poem, I also did not rely on using poetic conventions. Rather, I utilized my ability to enhance imagery and emotion to deliver a poem that could be visualized by a reader and could provide a pathos of understanding for my overall theme.
I like your point on how poetry can capture a single moment. It is interesting to consider how simple, yet layered and complex poems are.
Great work on your poem!
- Rachel Franks
Hi Natalie,
ReplyDeleteYes, I do believe that creating poems is an evoke of primal emotions. Wether it is on a day-to-day basis or just once and a while, your writing takes place when you feel it's the time to create, the time to speak your truth into reality. Drafting my own poem took great measure, it was not just a walk in the park, which is why writing your thoughts is like various versions of the same piece of the puzzle, you take time to piece together what was once lost and distorted and create something new.