Poetry

Don't stop reading.

From my vast experience, convincing anyone to read a poem is a drag. Honestly, if you send me a poem of your own to read, chances are I'll glance at the first line. Good poetry is hard to come by. I was recently told by a former 8th grade Literature teacher that she never taught poetry since she was given the option to avoid it.

My opinion: you're reading the wrong stuff. Poetry is nice and short, and can range from heavy to light topics. Unfortunately the majority of modern poetry is congested with words only found in the thesaurus about god only knows what.

For those of you not too scared to try something new and not too political or scandalous, try Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman. I have read these duets with all ages, and have even discussed the poems with a group of 8th grade girls. Having done a bit of background, I found out that many religious schools use this as a springboard into different subjects. This surprised me since the book has no religious connotations (with exception to the title). It is a children's book, but has depth. It's no Shakespeare, but a good start.

Try it, and let me know what you think!

First Post

As I sat at the dinner table with my grandparents and sister, the spiderweb that is my brain connected the comments about blogs (why anyone would throw their entire life story for anyone to read) and my inability to remember what plays and movies I saw.

A friend of mine was given advice from a professor, that when applying for an editorial or technical writing position, the potential-employer would search their work on the internet. Having seen blogs of family and friends, I could not imagine what kind of blog I would be interested in writing. Generally, I enjoy writing fiction, and would prefer to publish my work, so blogging did not seem like a good option.

So why do I think that I would have any sort of following while spewing my opinion? There are plenty of reasons, but I prefer my readers know little about me, and make judgement of my critiquing ability solely based on my writing, instead of my experience.