I envy poets. <\/p>\n
I don’t “get” poetry, and honestly — I don’t go out of my way to read it. It doesn’t resonate with me as a reader, and I absolutely cannot wrap my mind around it as a writer. I wrote poetry as a teenager (please, feel free to laugh) and it was awful.<\/em> I’m not just being self-deprecating here. There was no rhyme, reason, or rhythm to the poetry I wrote — it was just a sixteen-year-old girl ranting with arbitrary line breaks. <\/p>\n The thing is, the poets I know who also write prose have some of the most gorgeous, intelligent prose that I’ve ever read. I imagine it has something to do with the form: that whole rhyme and rhythm thing. I feel like when a poet sits down to tell a story, they’re still bring that poet’s sensibility to the way they present their words. And the end result is something that makes me utterly green with envy.<\/p>\n (Obviously, I’m generalizing a bit — I’ve known poets who had some trouble getting their thoughts out using prose.)<\/p>\n I’m frequently told, “Oh, you should try it; it’ll inform your writing.” I firmly believe that. A form that requires you to use every word for the maximum amount of feeling? That encourages multiple meanings? That provides multiple forms, from the old school to the mathematical? As a writer, I can’t see a downside.<\/p>\n It doesn’t stop me from being daunted. The very idea<\/em> of poetry ties my stomach in knots. It feels like I’m expected to scale a wall without any safety equipment. It strips all the things I feel comfortable with in my writing — characters and dialogue and setting — and instead demands the introspective of me. I could write poetry as a character, sure; I could tell a story instead of reflecting on my feelings. (I have a friend who does both these things, and well.)<\/p>\n I am a person with a lot of feelings, but the starkness of feeling that (I feel) poetry requires is a bit much for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I envy poets. I don’t “get” poetry, and honestly — I don’t go out of my way to read it. It doesn’t resonate with me as a reader, and I absolutely cannot wrap my mind around it as a writer. I wrote poetry as a teenager (please, feel free to laugh) and it was awful. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[431,856,883],"class_list":["post-3469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-form","tag-poetry","tag-prose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}