I read something today, that made me think of some of the old poetry floating in my hard-drive, some of which I have not read or thought about in five years.
I took six writing courses in college, and my poetry became the focal point for me nearly immediately. The majority of it was about childhood, relationships, old memories, and the like. Things that had been shaking about in my brain for years without any real way to be expressed suddenly had a way out.
The best part? I had an automatic audience (unlike this blog) in all my classes, as we work-shopped each others pieces. We also had a few regular readings in local bookstores and coffee shops (yes, yes, i know. Hipster Heaven.)
Anyway, I found out two things about my writing in short order. The first was that my heartfelt pieces, about my girlfriend at the time, or about my parents, or pretty much about anything slightly wistful was a crowd pleaser.
The second, was that as my writing style matured, I greatly preferred writing stuff that was more of the...well fuck it. Here.
Oh you JUST missed him!
Dear god, I know I really don’t pray all that much but if you can get me through this I would be really thankful. Maybe I’d even start going to church ag...
oh.
He’s not in.
No, no message. Thanks.
Ok, so it lacks something without being read out loud. Still, a few classmates and I soon realized that writing something that made the audience go "huh?" was way more fun than writing something that made the audience go "hmmm.." At one point, one of the guys in my class composed a poem on the back of his notebook AT a reading. The title? "Composed on the back of my notebook during this reading," or some such thing. It also stopped in mid sentence, as he ran out of room.
God those were fun.
Anyway, re-reading these is like going back in time and looking at how my mind processed information back then.
It's an odd feeling, as it's been quite awhile since I've written a poem.
Now to see if I can still do it.
