I did not really know what to expect coming into this class. And now here we are halfway through the semester, and I guess I am here to write about what we've (I've) done and what I've noted and what I want to see happen in the last half of this class. It's probably unrealistic - it being a poetry class and all - to hope for a little more structure, so I will try to think of more requests/suggestions/ideas to give by the end of this assessment paper/blog post. Incidentally it is very hard to treat this as an actual paper since I am writing it on a blog. It might also be because I'm not sure how to approach an assignment like this to begin with. But anyway, here goes nothing.
I honestly have probably not spent as much time as I should to work on this class. I have done all the readings as well as several books of various poets' works which have been very helpful. Before this class it was very rare that I would find a book of poetry and just sit down and read it, and I feel like what I've read has helped me get a better feel for what a poem is, and work on my own style of writing. I haven't spent as much time as I should have in writing, mostly because I am really bad at writing things like poetry and the things we do in this class when I do not have some kind of inspiration. I don't like forcing myself to try to find something I'm not feeling. I've been putting as much effort as I've been able to, though, considering the inspiration droughts I regularly experience. And I really do feel as though I've improved since my first disaster of a "Beginnings" poem. I have been having some trouble with the "liturgy and worship" aspects of the class, just because I am not used to writing with the type of language that that requires... I haven't been doing many prayers because my first two were my normal praying-language as well as fairly personalized, which isn't what I was supposed to be going for, and I'm not sure how to change that. I don't like most communal prayers, especially written ones that can be read or memorized; they usually strike me as insincere and as a result I find it difficult to pay attention or try to "pray along." So I would have to change my perspective on this subject to be able to write these prayers, and I just don't know how to do that.
I did wake up every three hours to try to do that Hours poem series in one day, for which I think I should get some bonus points.
I am taking this class seriously and I'd like to think that what I have been able to do reflects that. I know most of my poetry is not silly (the exceptions being one or two of my Hours poems that I tried to infuse with some humor), no matter how badly most of them may be written. I think the category "seriousness of the work" mostly applies to effort, though, which I've already addressed. I try to take all of my classes seriously and I am trying my hardest to do well in this class.
I still don't know what a poem is. A definition would be so helpful, but yes I do understand that poetry is one of those things that can be almost anything, kind of like art. There's a lot of it in the world, sometimes hard to recognize as itself, some of it bad and a lot of it good, but in the end it just is. This of course makes it difficult for me to write poetry, especially since I like to know what I'm doing before I do it. Which is a weird mindset for me, a self-proclaimed artist, to have, when my favorite discipline is based entirely on aesthetics and the audience's response and things that I can't define but have to feel my way towards. I think I just need to stop thinking of writing a poem as writing, and start thinking of it as a form of art, so that I can stop thinking so hard and instead feel the solution. Once I get to that point I think I might actually be not half bad at this poetry thing; I'm just not there yet.
I've never had to use a blog for a class, and I've never been able to keep up a regular blog, so this has been interesting to say the least. I like the blog system because it enables me to actually see my fellow classmates' work, instead of just knowing how I am doing and not seeing progress made by anyone else. I also don't like typing things in Word and printing them out and handing them in when they're due, so this makes my life a lot easier. I do not however think that the blog is always the most convenient thing. I need to get to a computer in order to post things, and not only a computer but a computer with working internet. The Houghton wireless has been a problem for me more than once this semester, and with unreliable service like that it can make the blog system something of a pain. Overall though I think it is a great idea.
The accountability groups are very helpful, except of course for those times when I have little to show my group. But it is always really good to get outside feedback, on anything really, because I know for me personally I am a really bad judge of what I make that is good or bad, and why, so I need other people to tell me what I'm doing right/wrong. Suggestions as to what to do with work are always helpful, since even when I don't take the advice it does cause me to think about my work from a different perspective. The small groups are good too; I've become able to recognize my group members' style and notice their habits because there are so few of them and I deal almost exclusively with them.
For this next half of the semester, as I said previously, I would love more structure and definitions and things to be laid out for me so I can feel a little more like I know what I'm doing and not just being whirled along for the ride. But since I doubt that will happen, here's a more realistic goal: I want to get better at the things we do in this class. We are halfway done and I still feel like I am an awful poet, and I would like that feeling to change to a mostly mediocre poet. I don't think that's too much to ask. Hopefully.
No comments:
Post a Comment