writerjenn

Once upon a time, I wrote poetry. First I was a child writing verses about the cuteness of kittens; then I was an adolescent dripping angst and dark imagery. Even after discovering the joys of prose, I still wrote poems. Especially when I was breaking up with someone. There's nothing quite as satisfying for a bruised heart as ripping a good, gut-twisting clot of poetry out of your soul.

Then something happened. Although I loved the short stories in literary quarterlies, I could no longer make sense of the poems. Three words in, I would flounder, clueless. I concluded there had been a revolution in poetry, a revolution that had left me behind. Unlocking poetry now seemed to require a password I didn't possess. So I dove deeper into prose, and reveled there for years.

I skipped over the poems in my literary journals. I never picked up a book of poems. Although I still jotted down poems during stressful times in my life--"therapeutic" poems fit for nobody's eyes but my own--I had officially given up on the form. My serious writing, the writing I polished and sent out, was all prose.

My reawakening happened gradually. After reading the works of Jack Kerouac, I was willing to try his friend Gary Snyder, who lit a spark with the poems of THE BACK COUNTRY. Those poems are like a good hike through a Northwestern forest.

Marge Piercy lit another spark. In her book, PARTI-COLORED BLOCKS FOR A QUILT, she discusses the craft of poetry, the elements of sound and meter and rhyme and imagery and how they work together. She shows drafts and revisions of poems, so the reader can see poems being "built." (I plan to discuss this book at greater length in a future post, because it's so chock full o' great stuff.)

I began to find poems I could understand. I began to appreciate the richness of poetic language. By this time, I had achieved a certain competence with prose; I needed to stretch a little, to keep myself fresh. So I took night classes in poetry at my local adult school. I approached poetry as a playful novice, an experimenter. I gave myself license to write poetry that was awkward and unpolished and amateurish, in the service of learning something. I was fortunate in my supportive teachers, Lynn Levin and Deborah Fries, who helped continue the demystification of poetry. I went to my local bookstore's poetry group. I started to use poetic elements in my prose.

My education continues via writer/blogger/poetry-guru Kelly Fineman, whose Poetry Friday posts are tutorials on the art, each lesson opening another door in the wall of the once-inaccessible castle. Best of all, her posts make poetry seem exciting and essential. It was her blog that introduced me to the whole concept of Poetry Friday, a weekly cyberspace festival that I've never joined until now, because I still consider myself "poetically challenged." But at least nowadays, I'm open to learning.