Hey Ya’ll
Today I wanted to talk about poetry. In particular, about my experiences with writing poetry and open up the floor for discussion in the comments.
Most of us probably have experience with poetry because of middle and high school English classes, and for many, their experience stops there. However, I would write poetry as a hobby during my high school years. I wrote as an emotional outlet and honestly, most of what I wrote was melodramatic ramblings rather than actual poetry. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I enjoyed it.
However, during my college years, I wound up dropping it. Part of it is because I reached a point of my life where I was less emotionally intense and had less fuel to write from. In the past, my poetry was mainly an emotional outlet rather than something I consciously thought about. So, I stopped writing for a long while.
Earlier this year, I became inspired to write poetry again. Part of it was because YouTube started recommending me videos about poetry. Particularly, reviews of poetry books. Hearing people talk about poetry got me in the mood to write again. I also found a YouTube channel (Rachael Oates) that talked a lot about poetry and they recommended a book for beginners. This book was The Ode Less Traveled by Stephen Fry. This book was a book of poetry fundamentals going over concepts such as meter, form, and rhythm. It gave me a good foundation for some of the “rules” of poetry. Now, I could write poetry with a bit more of a structure to them, an idea of what can be done, rather than the directionless emotional outbursts of my high school days.
However, I still have much to learn about poetry. Mainly, I need to do more practice with it. I also need to become more read with poetry. Right now, most of my experiences with poetry have been through what high school English had us read, the poetry reviews I’ve seen on YouTube, and a random handful of poetry collections. I’m open to suggestions for poetry if anyone has them. Also, if you like poetry, talk about when you got into poetry and what drew you to it.
Here, I’m going to put one of my poems I’ve written this year as an example of what I’ve been working on.
Deep Horizon (Search For The Stars)
I find myself standing
Above the shattered earth below
Ruptured society
Drifting into space’s great void
Alone and shivering
I observe surrounding darkness
Radiation eating
Away at tender human flesh
In the deep horizon
I see freckled pinpricks of light
Heaven’s light leaking through
Space’s worn out curtain
To the light I shall go
Like a bug lured by brightness
Be it a trap or no
It’s got to be better than here
Among the cosmos sea
Debris clutter the way forward
I find myself wading
Through modernity’s refuse
Greasy McDonald’s wraps
Stuffy, un-tailored business suits
Various plastic junk
The remains of extinct species
One by one, scoop by scoop
I clear through them, paving onward
Each broken computer
Brings me closer to that bright light
I look back behind me
And see continents fly away
The ocean waters stream
Directed by the solar winds
I turn back to the stars
Plowing my way through junk again
Looking to find that light
And discover just what it is
Thanks for reading!