Poetry

It was late Saturday night, I’m in bed next to my sleeping husband watching TV, ( I know, to get the best sleep, no TV in the bedroom, but I spent so many nights alone while he was on the road (the railroad) that I depended on the TV those nights after getting him off to work where I was either scared or too wide awake.) and in my surfing I found the movie ‘Dangerous Minds.'

The movie is from a memoir ‘My Posse Don’t Do Homework’ by Lou Anne Johnson and I read the condensed version in Reader’s Digest a few months before the movie came out. I remember taking one of my sons to see this and loving the story. This time around I was surprised to find great writing wisdom.

Lou Anne Johnson tells her class: “If you can learn to read poetry, you can read anything.” It stands to reason then, that if you can learn to write poetry, you can probably write anything. I’ve heard many versions of this, too. One was a great article a few months ago in The Writer by Lisa Dale titled ‘What Poetry Can Do for Your Fiction Writing.’
I mention all this because I’m taking an online workshop: World into Word Poetry-Editing Course, Melanie Faith, instructor that’s just been great. A ton of work, a lot of reading, a lot of improvement to some poems, but the best, in my view has been the improvement in the way I look at editing my other writing, in particular, my novels. It has given me another layer of questions and decisions that will do nothing but improve my writing.

I think poetry hones my writing. When I write poetry I’m trying to write big meanings with few words—brush strokes weighted by meaning. Whether my poetry is publish-worthy or not has no bearing on whether the practice improves my writing. That’s kind of a nice thing in a practice that oftentimes has so little reward.

What I find poetry does for my writing:

.Tightens
.Learning word choice (oh, for the double-duty word)
.Brings serendipity to your writing
.Letting go of control
.Live in the meaning
.Writing for writing’s sake