Saturday, February 23, 2008

Exploring My Own Amazement...

Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement.
~Christopher Fry


That’s me, exploring my own amazement as I continue to have loads of fun with Laura Salas’ poetry course, unlearning and learning.

Let me explain the unlearning part. This past Thursday was about writing rhyming poems and the importance of metering, which I thought I knew. HA! Well I may have known something about metering but it wasn’t what I have now been taught. I have developed the utmost respect for poets who can write rhyming poetry right.

I used to think I was pretty good at writing rhymes. I should have figured out I wasn’t when many of my rhyming poems were not selling! Anyway, now I have learned the right way and massive confusion has set in. Counting all those little beats and feet has put my brain into reverse. Which is okay cause now there’s lots of room to learn. Scanning a poem takes practice and for me lots of time. I’m a musical person (I play the piano) and I used to think I was a natural at writing rhythmic rhyming poetry, not any more. At least not the perfect way. And not for now. As I explore my own amazement I’m sure to come up with some rhyming poetry sometime in the future!

It has been kindly explained to me that because I am a good reader I can make a poem sound like the metering is bang on. So that’s a good thing. I can read well! Yeh!

This learning poetry is tough, but thank goodness it’s fun. Even though I’m not as good as I thought I was, I’m still having fun writing it. In fact, I would say I’m having more fun writing poetry because I have learned many new things to bring into my work.

I wonder what will happen when I find out all my previously written Haiku is wrong and have to relearn that too?

So overall, it’s a good thing I found out I’m not as good as I thought. Because I have only one way to go, and that is up. So watch out…Here I come as I continue to explore my own amazement.








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