There are many similarities and differences on writing poetry and writing about poetry. I have to say that I had a better time writing poetry than writing about poetry. Writing about poetry was a little bit difficult to me because it has hard to interpret someone else’s poem. I explicated Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” even though it was an easy poem to interpret, the explication process of the poem was very difficult. I am not a huge fan of reading poetry or writing about poetry but I did have a great time writing the wrecking the first person poem and the found poem. Writing about poetry did help me write my own poetry a little bit. I am still getting used to the poetic forms and all of the terms. But I do not think that writing about poetry help me write my own poems. In future reference to teaching, I think that it is great to teach students a little bit about poetry and to do the same exercises that we have done in this class. I had a great time writing and presenting my poetry. I have written a couple more over spring break and I think that I really enjoy writing poetry more than writing about poetry. I think that teaching poetry is very important because most people do not enjoy reading poetry but I think that the students can get really creative writing their own poetry like Haiku’s, first person poem and also the found poem. I thought that the found poem was the easiest and also my most creative poem that I have written so far. This section on poetry has changed my perspective on the genre all together.
About Me
- mattpage
- I am a graduating senior at Cal State Northridge. I want to teach high school English and Film. I love reading books and watching movies.
3 comments:
I pretty much agree with you about writing about the subject. I had the same problem as well. I understand what it means but how do I explain it in a way other people will understand. It is much more fun writing poetry than writing about poetry, though my dislike for poetry is apparently much greater than yours. I will agree with what you said about teaching it, even if you don't like it it is necessary to understand the greater scope of literature. Starting easy is a good idea as well.
I totally agree with you about preferring to write poetry vs. write about poetry. While I do consider reading and writing about poetry an important step in teaching poetry, I also emphasize that poetry writing itself can offer students a creative outlet that the other two lack. I believe that the reading and writing phases of poetry should be taught first. They allow the students to think about poetry critically. I think that once the students have a somewhat firm grasp of the terms and uses of the terms by established poets, they will finally be able to use them correctly and meaningfully. When we wrote our poem analysis essays, while they might not have been as fun as writing creative poetry, we learned what we liked and didn’t like and what worked for us and didn’t work. If we had done it the other way and wrote poems and analyzed after, I don’t think our poems would have turned out as well as they did.
I agree with you that I too had a better time writing poetry rather than writing about poetry. I enjoyed writing the wrecking the first person poem, than having to explicate someone elses work. I too did a Robert Frost poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". I like his poetry because he is to the point and you can find things to relate it to our life. The other more difficult poets I do not attemp to explicate it they are too strange in the first lines. Next!
I also feel more relaxed to share these types of poem writing with our future students because they are fun and later introduce them to the more structured styles of poetry.
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