I’ve started to see a lot of overlap between this poetry class and a few of my other classes… as a creative writing focused English major, I suppose this isn’t too surprising, but it has led me to ask myself a few questions. In most of the other writing forms that I have dabbled it, the one thing that seems necessary is a fairly overt “so what.” If the reader reaches the conclusion, and its left wondering what that “point” was, then most would agree that the short story/narrative essay/flash fiction had fallen short of its aim. So far, I have found myself reaching the end of a poem, and not so much asking myself, “so what?” but his slightly more disgruntled cousin, “HUH?”. I have to work to find the meaning. And sometimes what I come up with is completely different than everyone else’s solution. And I think that might actually be ok. I am getting more comfortable with the idea that no word in a poem is accidental. Being able to accept this has perhaps helped me to pick apart other’s poems, but I don’t think I’m quite past being wasteful with my own words. Maybe I’ve been sloppy with my other creative writing as well; why did I think I could get away with arbitrary word choice? The focus and close reading demanded by poetry analysis has made me look and other genres of creativity with a fresh critical eye. What a useful intro class. TOOLS. I love tools.
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I believe poetry is rather subjective. If you can find your own meaning in the text (as well as understand what everyone else gets out of it) I believe you are doing something right. For me, the "HUH" is what makes poetry so fascinating...I really like 'what ifs.'
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