I put the packet
that had multiplied in size since the preliminary stages of the damn poem on
the table and, as cliché as it
sounds, felt the weight lift off of my shoulders. As much as I liked poetry, it
didn't exactly feel like my best of friends while I was had been sitting at the
keyboard over the last several weeks, struggling for the right words.
What I believe
the most difficult part to be is that I don't feel like I ever found them until
I was in a frenzy to finish the thing! I have read all of my life, I have
spoken to adults, and I communicate every second of every single day, even if
that communication is internal. But it took a "frenemy" (a
combination of friend and enemy) relationship with my poem in order for me to
truly understand the power that words can really have. I keep revisiting that
moment where I realized I had gone about this process totally and utterly
incorrectly, where I felt overwhelmed by how much I had left to do. That moment
was sitting one-on-one with my English teacher, something I wish I had done
much sooner.
I had come to the
last ten minutes of English class that day in order to receive feedback on a
draft that I had revised significantly since the previous edition. I felt like
I had expressed myself much more clearly than in previous versions of the poem,
and I was hoping--and expecting--my English teacher to feel the same way.
Wrong again.
When I received
the poem, my eyes flew to the boxed in "C" in the bottom left hand
corner. It felt like what three letters later in the alphabet stood for. I was
clearly way too focused on the grade, and not about leanring how to write
poetry or developing a voice separate from that of the
"pseudo-scholar." When I brought myself up to being able to read his
comments, I was, quite expectedly, dragged down by them. Apparently, I had
tried to reach this uber-philosophical tone in my writing that just wasn't me.
Okay, Mr. Allen. (Before your grade me down on this blog for the previous
sentences, please read below.)
This shift to
really caring about the writing, not the letter boxed in at the bottom-left,
occurred in the moments described in the next paragraph. While I am glad I did
eventually make that shift, it had come a draft too late.
Probably
one of the greatest things that has ever been said to me by a teacher, in all
seriousness, was at the lowest point of the conference I had with Mr. Allen. He
told me that a Russian short story-writer used the technique of having an elaborate
backstory for his characters that allowed him to have a lot more
"fun" and enjoy greater liberties when it came to developing the
story based on their stories. He, Mr. Allen, was under the impression that I
was unfamiliar with my character. That couldn't
be possible, I told myself, I am my character. It sucked to admit it,
but Mr. Allen was absolutely under the correct impression that I didn't know my
character, or myself for that matter. This long process wasn't one of
completely finding a "new and enhanced me" so much as it was about
finding a new and enhanced poetic voice.
I
had always been the kind of writer to sit down and just start writing.
"Writers write to decide what they are going to write about" was just
a track that wouldn't stop playing in my head as I sat down at the keyboard for
the last time to recreate this philosophical crap. It took me until the very
end of the process to simply write, keeping my future self and my character's
life in mind, until I could finally say
what I wanted and to say without stumbling over every word of every line. I was
surprised that just by knowing my character, and adjusting my wording and
format of the piece, I could write with a much greater effectiveness than in
any previous drafts. For the first time in the entire process, I actually liked
writing the poem.
Thank
you Mr. Allen.
