Poetry, Writing Groups, and Awesome New Friends

Poetry causes me grief. Something about searching out the proper words for the exact meanings drives me nuts. I took a poetry class originally to find a more precise way to write. For the longest time, my friends called my writing incredibly flowery. I wanted to try and write something meaningful with novel length. A few years ago, I read Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady for a “Willa Cather and Midwest Women Writers” course. The book felt incredibly precise, with some of the scenes sounding more like poetry than anything else. This remains my goal.

I do not fell that I write poetry particularly well. I do not delve into my scenes as much as I should. I keep everything mostly to the sense of sight instead of actually moving beyond to the various other senses like I should as a good poet. My poetry professor, whom taught me everything I wanted and did not want to know about poetry, got me thinking about the senses and their levels of importance. Sight starts the beginning of experiences. You see things first. The sense of smell comes next, although smells linger in your mind. Smells stroke the memory pulling you back to places. Finally, you have the feeling of things underneath your hands or against your skin. Finally, the sense of taste sits the longest, but you need to get close enough. If you taste it, you remember the tastes or even the feeling of certain things against your tongue.

My poetry never touches on each of the senses as I stated. I need to start looking for words that will give you those sensory details. I recently made friends with someone who adores writing poetry due to the precisions. The story surrounding this friendship still makes me smile. That is a story for another time. She likes poetry due to the precision of words. According to our mutual friend, that choosing of words takes the majority of time in her poetry.

Together, we three friends created a Creative Writing group, which I hope will help me find some precision in my own writing, while helping my friend Nikki with her beginnings as a creative writer herself. I have wanted to be a part of a creative writing group for ages. A creative writing group on campus invited me to join them, and I have taken creative writing classes with all of them. Although I adore each of them, I feel like their beliefs and mine just don’t work in conjuncture with each other. I just want to work on my writing while taking my final semester of classes. I think blogging from time to time will help keep me going.

Although poetry causes me grief, I understand how studying poetry will help my novel writing. I love the fact I am just starting my writing career and by trying a variety of different types I expand my horizons. Maybe working with someone who loves the precision will help me write better poetry or at least expand my vocabulary for these mundane blog posts.