THE FIRST LESSON OF WRITING POETRY

Two weeks ago, I hated poetry.

Well, hate is a strong word. I didn't get it. I couldn't do it, couldn't understand it, and the inner toddler in me would throw temper tantrums before flipping the table and calling it a night. There were things I liked. A reading of "Milos" by slampoet Anis Mojgani has earned a triumphant place in my Google bookmarks bar. I still remember about 2/5 of Daryl Hine's "Echo" which I had to memorize for Senior English in high school. A gift, I read Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives cover to cover and recommended it to every person I could think of that was probably literate. 

But I wouldn't actively go out to read and enjoy poetry, and I'm still not sure if I could.

However, I'm taking an Intro to Poetry Writing class this term and my feelings on it leave me stumped every week. Last year, I took Intro to Fiction Writing, crazy challenging and rewarding. I took a hot yoga class with my teacher and with every intent but little time, never really wrote after that term again.

My teacher this term is maybe 24 or 25,  petite with long waves of ebony. She wears cognac lace-up boots and thin, cotton cardigans and honestly, I can't believe for a second that she's from Alabama. She's quiet, but not; I like people with a passion, and her passion is Robert Frost, Jack Gilbert, and Shakespeare sonnets. 

The first lesson of writing poetry for someone who hates/doesn't understand poetry is to accept that you are uncomfortable, slightly unwilling, and have utterly no idea what you are doing. This is okay. This is good. Now, just start with the little things.

Last week we had to present our first poems and I wanted to skip the workshop and get out of there. For me, I just sort of let the poem I wrote spill out, not knowing what was right or fitting or if  you can even critique stuff like that, because isn't it all subjective anyway?

Details aside, one girl in my class said she read mine late the night before, 1 am, tired as anything. She told me it broke her heart and made her cry, but that she loved it. Being moved by writing is really cool. Moving people through your writing is even cooler.

I still don't know what I'm doing, and I'm trying right now to read our assigned poems carefully and critically. I don't think I'm ever going to be a poet, but I might be a writer someday. 

My boyfriend's favorite book is Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, and soon, it won't just be dusty and bookmarked, wedged below the TV on our shelf in between a How-to-C++ textbook and a VHS tape of Homeward Bound (great movie). 

Two weeks ago, I still hated poetry. Now, it's not too bad.