Week 5 Post

Assignment 3 was a really interesting one for me to write this week. Having an assignment like this, based on the different levels of tension, is useful to have coming off of a week of workshopping. Workshops are always inspirational; it gives you a chance to read other peoples works, critique them, and in the same voice that you critique their work you can critique your own. The indefinite space that poetry encompasses is so encouraging to me and seeing all the different forms that people used in their pieces last week fueled all kinds of ideas for this weeks assignment. Before actually writing the poem, I sat starring at my computer for a while trying to decide between the different ideas I had rolling around my brain. The format of the poem can literally go anywhere you want to take it, or rather, where it takes you. If you pay close attention, you can find tension in the most mundane matters. While writing my poem i focused a lot on the different levels of tension and "adjusting the temperature." I found this was the easiest way to really show what the theme of the poem is and what matters most to the speaker. I liked being able to raise and lower the stakes just by altering my use of punctuation. The simplest things, like punctuation or line formatting, can help to adjust the levels of your tension.