Poetry isn't easy. Great poets make it seem like magic to produce such works of art, yet I'm sure overly-complex and underdeveloped poems prefaced "The Raven" and "The Road Not Taken." I may not be an Edgar Allen Poe or a Robert Frost, but taking a few levels of mediocrity to ultimately reach something stellar is and experience that I, a sophomore Academite, share with these ingenious poets.
One of the best memories I have as a child is being in North Carolina, and I wrote my first draft around this memory. My favorite poetry is that which is a little bit eery and creepy, yet simultaneously soft and smooth. This first level I worked on making sure my poem had an element of mystery and harmony. I focused heavily on creating a mood with rhyme and sound that when read aloud would mesh seamlessly into music. But my downfall was not realizing that music isn't just a sound; it's a feeling, a story, a message, and my poem had none of that.
My second draft I tried to keep that same ambiguity that I felt writing my first one, yet this time I seemed to amplify it to the point where the plot got stepped on and muddled in my creative ambition. I often tend to think in a way that always makes perfect sense to me, but when articulated to others does not come across the same way, and this became an issue in this second level. I created this fantasy scene with dark forests, sly animals, and curiosity. It all seemed wonderful and imaginative in my head; I knew every reference, metaphor, figurative language. Yet, it was not truly complete. I still did not know why I was writing it. Honestly, the only purpose I had was to write a possibly better poem that I thought Mr. Allen would hopefully deem as better, but realistically I was still close to flat-lining in terms of progress.
Finally, I caught it.
A great poetic idea is one of those great phenomenons of the world that cannot be obtained by force. For me, my greatest poetic work comes from those "aha!" moments that fly by my head and need to be harnessed into greatness. I found myself struggling for an idea when I sat down at my computer at a convenient time and stared at an empty screen begging and pleading to be splattered with words. My true success came about from the unintentional and divergent day-dreaming that I was able to condense in a fleeting moment. Eventually the hunger of the captured idea inevitably pushed its way into my fingertips and started to type. No matter what nonsense came about, be it completely ridiculous or utterly ingenious, it created the stem from which ultimately, with the combination of hard work, creativity, and elbow grease, a complete and develop flower blossomed.
My third and fourth drafts resulted from an unintentional turn. The impatience of waiting for my dad to pick me up had compelled me to walk home without a coat in the biting cold. In the two-mile walk of solitude and self-reflection, I realized that a poem did not have to be complex to be great. As a 'V' of birds towered over my head, I decided to focus on one of the most simplistic and innocent trends of nature: a bird escaping the winter. Thus, I had a feeling, a story, a message, and therefor I had music. When I sat down at my computer, the ideas poured out. Alone in the cold reminded me that I too wanted to escape the winter and fly away, and with this I found a way to emotionally connect myself to what I was writing, and what I was writing was exponentially better because of this vital piece of the puzzle I had previously lacked.
I am ultimately proud of my poem. But more than that, I am proud of the progress and steps it took to get there. Not only was creating an increasingly better poem for me satisfying, but finding that one moment, that one muse, was everlastingly thrilling. From this process I have taken away the recognition of drafting and editing, as well as the accompanying progress. But what I want most is for others to take away their own unique thoughts and feelings, different than his, different than hers, different than yours, and different than mine.
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