Amanda Pruett

A Work in Progress

Poetry has never been too appealing to me; instead, I have always focused on prose. When I learned that we had the choice of writing a poem or fiction for the workshops, I was relieved that I did not have to write a poem. It was a few class meetings later that I realized a poem was included in the midterm. Though I had learned quite a bit from the readings and workshops, I still felt overwhelmed. I was forced out of my comfort zone of prose and into the open range of poetry. I was disappointed that fiction was placed at the second half of the class, but after the poetry workshops, reading assignments, and this midterm, I have developed a new appreciation for the writing style.

I did not know what to expect when we met for the first poetry workshop. After we read the poem and explained the positives and the negatives, I realized how helpful these workshops could be. It is difficult to read your own poem and give yourself suggestions. It takes a fresh eye to look over the work and explain the strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has different ideas and thoughts, so when one person reads a poem, they may not necessarily gather the same thoughts from the poem as another person did. Everyone in the class has participated and offered suggestions. Through this process, I have learned that everyone has the ability to read a poem and gather an understanding of it. Though some poems have required an extra explanation from the author, the class as a whole has been able to find a way to make every poem work without changing the idea or tone behind them. As I gave suggestions and pointed out the strengths and weaknesses on each poem that we focused on in class, I took my own notes. I wanted to learn from others and use class suggestions to help me develop my own poem.

The reading assignments helped me understand the rules of poetry and that the rules do not always apply. When writing a poem, it is important to follow certain rules such as including specific qualities that make your poem fundamental. Imagery, rhythm, density, sounds, and lines all work together to give a poem a smooth quality. One line from the reading that helped me with my poem was that “the length of lines and their indentation are extremely important in most free-verse poems,” (Chapter 8, page 106). Because I write prose, it was easy for me to make each line of my poem longer than a poem would desire. The lines were written in such a way that it appeared to be a narrative divided out by stanzas. I went back over the assigned chapters and this line caught my attention. I realized it was necessary to delete a considerable amount of words from each line to give it a poetic tone. After I carefully examined the examples in the reading and compared it to my poem, I learned that I had numerous unnecessary words that were repetitive and redundant. I deleted words that the poem did not rely on and it improved drastically. I could not help but focus on one line in particular from the reading, however. The author was explaining the importance of exploring different themes. “Compare what you are writing with your earlier poems. Make sure you haven’t begun to repeat yourself,” (Chapter 11, page 140). Constant repetition of poems is considered therapy writing. I always assumed that the best poetry came exactly from therapy writing, but according to the author it is harmful to your works. I have written a few prose narratives before. After reading this chapter, I began to compare my narratives and found that they each clung to the same ideas; therefore, I was able to compare the reading assignments about poetry to prose as well. Though they both have different rules and tendencies, they still have common qualities that can change your work from ordinary to great.

Using my experience from the poetry workshops and notes from the reading assignments, I was able to produce a poem of my own. I quickly learned that a poem is not a work that can be forced and it is not possible to develop one idea and elaborate on it as you would in prose. In poetry, you do not always have the opportunity to explain your poem in later lines. Instead, the reader must grasp the meaning of the poem in the few, short lines that you give. My poem took a lot of rereading, revising, editing, deleting, and adding of lines. In the end, I was impressed with my new ability to develop a poem. Moreover, the most important lesson I learned from my revision was that you cannot assume any person can offer revision to a poem. Anyone can read a poem and say it is well written, but it takes a special eye to really break down the poem and determine the meaning behind it. You must have interest in poetry to care enough to offer suggestions to the author. I found that allowing close, personal friends to review your work is not beneficial. They would rather give me praise for the poem instead of pulling it apart and being honest. If I continue to write poems, I now understand the importance of using a poetry group to revise a poem.

Overall, this experience has taught me many new approaches, aspects, and ideas of writing which I can also apply to prose. I believe the poetry workshops have been the most beneficial of all to me. It has taught me how to break down a poem and find the meaning behind each word; in addition, I now know how to critique a poem and offer suggestions without the fear of the author taking this personally. We have all learned that a master piece cannot be created over night and that it takes more than one simple revision to truly create something great. In the end, every piece of written work, rather it is poetry or prose, it will always be a work in progress.