Somewhere In Between

After our first week of workshops, it has come to my attention how difficult it is to write a poem with a story that is both understandable, and yet is still abstract enough to be interesting. Of the poems we read in class, there was a mix of both too abstract poems, and overly simplistic poems. In those that were quite abstract, I felt completely lost. Others were quite simple and didn’t take much thought or intrigue, on the reader’s part, to see a deeper message, or to provoke any further reflection on the subject matter. These are two areas where receiving feedback from our classmates can really make a difference in the final product. As the author, it is more difficult to see that one’s poem is confusing to an outsider. What may be clear in one’s own head may not be the same in someone else’s head. Also, some topics I seemed to automatically lose interest in as I didn’t understand what the author was referring to at all, even after explanation. I guess people have very different thoughts and ideas when writing. It is also hard to see when simplicity is causing a poem to lack tension, as is the case in less abstract poems. This lack of tension can make for a very boring poem.