Figuring Out Who I Am, As A Writer (Free)

Things that I like to write about:

I love to write about nature, people, and places. I seem naturally drawn to these things, but I would like to expand from them some. I think it is amazing when people can use objects, such as a pair of scissors, and make them into something more. I have never really been able to do that. I kind of tried to with the orange in my last poem, I tried to use it as a metaphor for a man, but I am pretty sure that it didn't get across to some people.
Also, I am not very good with rhyme. I attempted to do something with it in my last poem, to step out of my box, but it didn't feel "natural." I would like to learn how to do rhyme more naturally, so it is something that I will work on. I think Jenna did an excellent job in "Cosmo Girl," her rhymes were wonderful. I think it just takes practice, or maybe rhymes are just not for me.
I am also an emotional writer. I have a hard time being able to write from someone else's shoes. Most of my poetry is very reflective of the experiences that I have been through. Not that that is a bad thing, that is how Marie Howe's poetry is, but I would like to learn how to detach myself from some of the subjects I write about. If I can sometimes take the "me" out of my work, I feel like maybe I would be able to maybe write better. But then again, maybe that is my opinion.

Thought's on Howe

The Mountain

It wasn't only the mountain then,
but the mountain later

rising in sleep
or deep in teh middle of stuttered proclamation

-
when, startled, he saw it,
how it had looked to him before,

how it had felt underfoot
like the back of an animal

heaving him down over and over again,
and the small stones that fell with him

making a music
and the silence then.

Once, he put his ear to water almost weeping
to the mouth of a sleeping child

so many many dead.
And the gravelly walk down then

the stones singing
and the wrist of the branch that held him

when he caught it, held him up.
It wasn't only the mountain then, that day:

the sky clearing, his awful thirst,
but the day after,

and all the days when he, forever moving,
felt it move in him.

It was like that
but he could not say it.

It was what rose up in him one minute
before walking

what seemed to block his view whenever
he looked too closely at something

his son,
his own hand, his food sometimes.

Finally, can you understand how easily
he relinquished it? The grit

the cracked bone, the new land?
He was that tired of walking in what

he knew was the wrong direction.
And he knew

better than anyone, how long the way back was
to where he stared,

when tending the lambs, day dreaming,
for no apparent reason, he looked up.


In class, we defined poetry as something that we cannot get out of our heads. I cannot get Marie Howe's poetry out of mine. I love her work, I think that she is amazing. Especially in this poem, I feel like I can feel Moses, what he was thinking, how he was feeling. I think I could learn a lot from Howe's style. She makes the stanzas hers. Her stanzas never rule her, she makes them perfect for what she is trying to say, and she never seems blocky, or ridgid, unless she wants her poetry to be that way. I love her passion. I hope that one day I can become as good of a writer as she is. Until then, I will use some of her techniques in my own poetry, starting with the one due Tuesday.