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Something I have been Trying Not To Write
I consider myself a writer not because I believe my work to be great, or even on the lower scale of good, but simply because I cannot not write. There are pieces that my heart holds dear, but nothing I have ever written is ever 'good enough'.
I have recently promised to try to stop referring to my poetry as 'trash' - which is what I have always called it. Another descriptive phrase I like to use is 'Adolescent Nursery Rhymes'.
So why am I plagued with this need to share? Is it that a writer needs readers, regardless of his own opinion of the work? Or is it a more twisted reason - wanting to show my soul to others so that they can catch a glimpse of my demons?
You see, I never wanted to write poetry. Poems are nuisances that plague me while I am trying to put together a piece of fiction. A verse of rhyme will race around my brain, keeping me from making any progress until I give in and write it down. Quite often it is written and trashed - I'll show you who's boss. How ya like it in the garbage can?
However, they are also my release valve. I attack the page, and often myself, with words no more pre-planned than a broken leg. Sometimes I feel better. Sometimes I feel worse. But always I feel different than when I started.
So, having said how I see my 'poetry' (want to use trash, but I promised...) I am wondering if I am not completely wrong in my approach to writing it. I write raw - whatever comes forth from the pen is what stays on the page, with perhaps some small amount of touching up, though usually not.
It is real. It is me at that moment in time.
It is at times accompanied by tears and followed by exhaustion.
Brief streaks of intensity.
No effort involved other than the strength that is sometimes required to harness the beast.
Meter. Rhythm. Should I try to bring my work within the guidelines I read in textbooks? Should I try to create what the more learned than I consider to be real poetry? Adopt their definition? Should I seek to use methods and words that are not natural to me?
Should I stop being real?
Would that make me a poet instead of... whatever I am?
I have no idea what poetry is. I know what I like to read;
I like to read that which makes me feel.
This has turned into a book. But -
I feel different now.
© 1998 Barry Veinotte
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