It always does. I have written four, and come this February, it will have been four years since I have written one. I’m not proud of poetry; not yet anyways, it’s too much of a social taboo. At least in my case it messes with my concept of what masculinity is. For being a guy that goes to the gym at least 3-4 times a week, publicly distances himself from the idea of being an intellectual, and is going to drop some serious cash into his wardrobe in the coming months; I would melt and disown all of my incongruities to have more like-minded individuals in my life.
Poetry destroys me. It takes up all of my creative energy, I have to combat my belief system that tells me that poetry is wrong. Especially for a man to write. It burns a memory permanently into my brain. They are conceptualized in weeks, I have one that took a year, and then they are hammered out in two sometimes three, 8-10 hour sittings.
What I try to accomplish in poetry is not in the first level of thought, the casual conversations we have on a day to day basis. Nor is it in the second level, the written level. Or the third level of writing, the analytic and comprehensive. It's on the fourth level, the creative level, taking an experience and recreating it into art. Where every stanza means something, and is connected to another idea, or an allusion to something greater. It all flows and has a unique rhythm to it. And then I simplify it into something legible. Though I have never written a poem to the right person. Which of course is damaging to my psyche to say the least.
Poetry destroys me. It takes up all of my creative energy, I have to combat my belief system that tells me that poetry is wrong. Especially for a man to write. It burns a memory permanently into my brain. They are conceptualized in weeks, I have one that took a year, and then they are hammered out in two sometimes three, 8-10 hour sittings.
What I try to accomplish in poetry is not in the first level of thought, the casual conversations we have on a day to day basis. Nor is it in the second level, the written level. Or the third level of writing, the analytic and comprehensive. It's on the fourth level, the creative level, taking an experience and recreating it into art. Where every stanza means something, and is connected to another idea, or an allusion to something greater. It all flows and has a unique rhythm to it. And then I simplify it into something legible. Though I have never written a poem to the right person. Which of course is damaging to my psyche to say the least.
For as often as I read blogs, I have never been a fan of writing one. I blogged on Myspace for a couple years, and for as much of a joke site as that is to really post anything, it led me to one of the happiest moments of my writer alter-ego’s life. I found a pen pal, and she found me; a beautiful girl who loved The Perks of Being a Wallflower, that I could write back and forth to. I did so for a little over a year; scribbled out, or typed onto white pieces of paper, real letters.
Freeze Without an Answer is the second poem I ever wrote. I wrote this poem 5 years ago, 7 months after I turned 18, to a friend of the family I met at a gathering. I don’t have any reason in particular why I chose to share this one; other than to mark my change in style as well as give an indicator of my range. Each of my four poems has an entirely different style and reason for existence. I wrote this to a girl that I danced with one time. You could tie me to a woven chair, and cut out the bottom of it, and “torture me with the simplest of tortures,” before I would write something like this again and give it away.
But then again, I work based off inspiration, so who knows.
But then again, I work based off inspiration, so who knows.
I still have your handwritten letters. That was the first rule you laid down; handwritten letters, remember? The next rule stated that I could never fall in love with you. Instead, I fell in love with your writing. I am proud of you. Thank you for sharing a big part of your life with someone you never met in person.
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