Category: Craft

Poetry Intended

my bp picLately, all of my poetry has depended on prompts and lessons given in class. I think it’s good for a poet or just a writer to get their poetry from a classroom structure, but I also think too much structure can lead to less creativity. I’m guilty of not often taking time out of my personal day to write anything. But when I do find the time, I go to the bookshelf for inspiration. I only own a few poetry books. The one I go to most often is by Nikki Giovanni: “Black Feeling Black Talk Black Judgment.” What I find inspiring in this collection of poems is the speakers that Giovanni brings to light. They are some of the most unapologetic, emotionally vulnerable speakers I’ve ever seen in poetry. It’s something I think Giovanni has mastered in her poetry and I seek to create in my poetry as well.

I’m in Junior Poetry and we’ve learned about sound and meter and different forms of poetry such as ekphrastic and ars poetica. Understanding these elements of poetry causes me to look at it differently when I read and write. I can find different intents through the form on the surface or the sound beneath, underlying the contents of the poem. This inspires my poetry because it is the foundation for all poetry. I’m no Poe or Longfellow, I’m nowhere near to mastering these foundations, but I think it’s incredible the power that lies in the confines of poetry. It is one of the more compact forms of writing, but in that short time, short if you don’t count epic poetry, an entire story is delivered, narrator, conflict, resolution, or lack thereof, and the reader can make a connection, one I think can be even stronger than a full-length fiction piece.

What inspires me to write poetry most of all are experiences. When I’m lost for an idea, I go back in my mind and find a personal moment I can create a new speaker from. This can become overused as there are only so many prominent experiences one can access, but that’s another thing about being a writer. Experiences can be reshaped, seen through a different lens every time to create the freshest recounting. This also applies to experiences that aren’t personal, something I’ve seen on TV, in the news, or something I’ve watched someone else go through. I think these experiences are just as strong as personal ones and can create the most universality.

–Lindsay Yarn, Creative Nonfiction/ Co-Web Editor

A Prose Poem is a Bowl of Spaghetti That You can Read

ABC SoupIn most conversations about what makes a poem a poem, form is discussed. One of the seemingly defining factors of a poem is its line breaks. Whether it be sprawling free verse, or the strict nature of a sestina, a key identifying factor of poetry is its visual appearance. Line breaks are a key poetic tool to manipulate mood and to segment images—they are, in many ways, one of the few things poetry has no other genre does.

I’ve always considered myself someone who can express themselves better narratively than abstractly. Because of this, I have struggled with the more nebulous nature of poetry, particularly regarding telling a story within the form. Then, I discovered the prose poem.

Prose poems are the Weird Westerns of the writing world. Prose poems dip their French fries in milkshakes, and put Cheetos in their sandwiches. Prose poems pronounce milk “mulk”.

The ability to anchor my images within a prose-like structure in many ways enables me to let the images flower naturally, and my idea tend to follow a more natural progression when they aren’t being stuffed into visual tube tops. Don’t get me wrong—poetry is a majestic form, and line breaks are the stakes keeping the vine growing up. Take the stake away, the vine collapses into a bowl of spaghetti. A prose poem is a bowl of spaghetti that you can read.

For some reason, surrealism blooms in prose poems. But so does honesty, because the imagery and syntax of poetry bring emotion into the space that swells without form to keep it clean.

 

For a long time, I thought prose poems were not in fact poems, largely because of the aforementioned belief that line breaks are the foundation of poetry. Humans naturally reject things they can’t easily categorize, and prose poems trample on category. Some think they should be considered as a genre of their own—my previous self, included—which is fair. But genre, like so many other things, is only a set of rules meant to be broken.

However, the foundation of poetry is music—poems were originally meant to be sung. It is the sound of a poem that makes it a poem, which is why when you remove the line breaks of a poem, you can still tell it is one. It doesn’t matter to me if the prose poem is a poem, or something else entirely. What matters is that they are uniquely dynamic and engaging worms of writing that sometimes kick you in the face and tell you to like it.

 

PROMPT:

Take an experience within your life and explore it through a surreal prose poem. Use aliens, mythological figures, or any other fantastic images/language you can think of. Through the fantasy/sci-fi aspects, explore the emotional consequences of this experience.

-Zarra Marlowe, Managing Editor

Exploring Poetry

marys-blogpost-picUntil my junior year of high school, I hadn’t given poetry a thought, or a chance. I decided that non fiction, was my first love, and felt it was my last. That’s the thing, I didn’t understand first loves, or last loves, and I’m not claiming I do now, but I do know that in order to love something, to love it hard, you, have to explore it, make the effort to understand it, and fully accept it for it’s truest form. Writing is no different.

I never expected poetry to so quickly grasp me in its arms, and shake some sense in to me. Before poetry I constantly doubted myself as a writer, I didn’t think I was deserving of that title. How did I know I was any good? Poetry on the other hand taught me, that its not always about being good; it’s about feeling. Non fiction allowed me to tell the truth, but only parts of the truth that I wanted to say, fiction allowed me to hide. I was surprised to find out that when writing a poem, every part of me fell on to the paper, and I didn’t know, until I was done, and there was no going back. Not only was I writing poetry, but I was exposed to so many great poets that year, Richard Blanco, Yusef Komunyakaa, Patricia Smith, Naomi Shihab Nye, just to name a few.  Exploring poetry, and realizing that every word counts, made me a better writer when it came to fiction, and non fiction. Thats what I mean, when saying that in order to love something you have to explore it, you have to understand the mechanics, and the rules, and the reasons.  Now I can’t imagine a life with out poetry. Poetry feels like writing in its purest form. Writing that can’t be harmed by too much emotion, and the slow meaningful process of revision. Poetry made me believe in humanity, and empathy more than I ever knew. Poetry is life through metaphors, too beautiful to ever be ugly, but powerful enough to hurt.

A writing prompt that I constantly go back to, is one recommended by Patricia Smith: imagine the  person you have had the hardest relationship with is dead, lying on a marble slab in an empty room. It is your job to dress them, describe each item of clothing that you place on their body, describe the room, describe what it feels like to touch that persons body. This prompt will bring up emotions, you may need to feel, and helped me let go of a lot of things I held on to. If you attempt this prompt, don’t over think it, just go with what you feel. You can always revise later, but you can’t revise words you never put down.

-Mary Feimi, Co-Editor in Chief