Workshop Checklist Thoughts and My Own Sort of Writers Block...

I definitely hear where everyone is coming from with the workshop checklist frustrations. I know it can definitely seem counter productive in some ways as we take part in the actual workshop but I don’t think the intentions of the workshop checklist are actually for us to actually use it quite as literally as it says. I think that it is definitely a helpful starting point… especially when reading a poem that you kind of don’t really know what to make of initially. The workshop checklist is kind of there to point us in the right direction of what to look for. It obviously isn’t tailored to each individual piece of work or assignment that we have but it is sort of nice to have these sorts of questions in mind as you’re reading through someone else’s poem and is certainly helpful to keep in mind as I’m writing my own poems especially when I kind of feel like I’m lost as to what I’m trying to do. I think that overall the most important part of the workshop is to give helpful and constructive feedback and if sometimes the questions don’t apply to a certain piece or in some cases they will have repetitive answers then whatever. There is always the end for adding in feedback that you think would be helpful that wasn’t otherwise addressed.

Another blog issue I wanted to discuss that was that I really wish I were more inclined to take risks in my poetry. I mean I’m honestly trying hard to go out of my own comfort zone and write about things that I wouldn’t normally consider writing about and in different ways that I wouldn’t have really previously considered but I really wish I were daring enough to try to challenge myself in what I was doing more than I am. For example I really want to write a response poem to one of the poems we’ve read in class, kind of like the poem that we read in the 21st century book that was similar to the Shakespeare Sonnet. I tried for hours to even just find one that I felt inclined to respond to but nothing really stood out to me. I know I’m probably just being picky/not open minded enough but I honestly really struggled through this. Ugh. I find myself WANTING to something to write about so this isn’t like a normal case of writers block but I just can’t do it when it comes down to it. I know it sounds silly and I should just listen to NIKE’s advice and just do it and then kind of take it from there but for some reason I just can’t. Ugh. I’m trying to push through it but hopefully it will work out for the next assignment.