Poetry

If I had to say what form of writing comes most naturally to me, I'd have to say poetry. I've been writing poems for as long as I can remember. My journals are filled with little poems, big poems, mushy poems, and stupid poems. I don't wake up at three in the morning wanting to write plays or novels, but I love writing poetry in the middle of the night. Don't ask me why.

But I go through periods when poems just don't happen. While I will sit at my desk with a goal of how much of a story or play I want to write, I haven't done the same with poetry since college. I miss college poetry classes even more than my playwriting classes. My junior year I applied to intermediate poetry and advanced poetry on a whim. When I got into advanced poetry, I nearly peed my pants. I was terrifed to go to that class every week. There were so many students in that class whose work floored me. I just didn't think mine compared. I still cringe thinking of some of the poems I wrote and shared with the class, but there were a few that I like, that I still think about. What I loved about that class is that it made me pay attention to the details. To punctuation. To word choice. To rhythm. To line. To the page. Yes, my playwriting classes stressed this too, but in a different way...a way that I am having trouble articulating right now.

It was in that class that I made my official decision to write a poetry thesis and not a playwriting one. Honestly writing a poetry thesis scared the crap out of me, which is exactly why I knew I needed to do it. Every two weeks I made my way to my advisor's office and he'd look at the work I had done. He'd cross out entire stanzas, make squiggly lines under words that just didn't sound right, and write question marks in the margin as I sat quietly, dying a slow "o-m-g-what-the-hell-was-i-thinking-writing-this-poem" death. Then he'd look up, smile and we'd start discussing my work. I would leave 20min later feeling like an actual poet.

I no longer feel like an actual poet. Or a writer for that matter (though I am getting used to saying I am a writer and grad student). Even so, in the past week, two poems have found their way out of my head and into my journal. In the past week, no other kind of writing really happened. Poetry has been there for me when other forms fail to manifest. For that, I will be forever grateful.

Tomorrow is the beginning of NaNoWriMo and while I am going to be writing a novel, I hope that the poems keep coming. I plan to start off each day reading a poem. Maybe it is a little cheesy, but I am going back to what I know, what inspires me, and what keeps the words coming. If you have any poem/poet suggestions, let me know. I'd love to add to my poetry collection.