Hey, I just found some poetry that I wrote when I was in high school. It's sort of strange to think that I ever wrote poetry. I just thought that I'd share some of it, since I'm trying to be a writer.
Unfortunatly, the server mangles it so it doesn't look good in post form.
[This message has been edited by Survivor (edited December 14, 1999).]
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I'm going to try posting them on my web site. It'll be here -->.
[This message has been edited by Survivor (edited December 14, 1999).]
Posted by ducky (Member # 279) on :
If you were to write them now how would they be different? Why should they embarrass you? I think they showed talent. I enjoyed the one about dreams a lot. How easily we let them flee from us unserved. I wrote one for my nephew when he earned his eagle scout award. It too is about dreams and dreamers. It speaks about the beauty of our dream, esp. when we link them to action. Too many times we are content just to dream, but dreams should move us.
[This message has been edited by ducky (edited January 06, 2000).]
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Hmm, well, if I wrote them now, well, they wouldn't be poems. I wrote those a decade ago.
It's odd, because I remember writing them, but I hadn't remembered that I was like that back then. I mean, remembering the specific instances of thinking about things, I see that I was aware of things that I thought I wasn't aware of back then. But I was less confident. I didn't believe that I could be anything more than a teenager. I thought they were silly notions, like every teenager is full of. I expected to outgrow them.
Foolish me. That was the silly notion. Expecting to outgrow awareness.
Posted by ducky (Member # 279) on :
So write them again or at least take your theme and write on the same theme. I would love to read the update version. It would be interesting to see the effects of added experience and hopefully added maturity. Bye the way some people do seem to lose awareness, I will not dignify the process by saying they outgrow it, as they mature. Be glad you have not lost the miracle of awareness.
[This message has been edited by ducky (edited January 13, 2000).]
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Well, everything that I write or think now is going to be permeated with those ideas anyway. I just think it's interesting to remember what I was like back then.
Experience does change us. I could never have written these after, oh, after I was 21, say. It would have seemed almost trite to me. Like when someone saves your life and you pat them on the back and say, "Good job, for a first try!" I'm not sure that similie works, but I hope you get the idea anyway.
I guess that I'm just surprised to look back and see myself looking forward, and it's almost like we're looking at each other outside of time or something.
I and him are the same person, I didn't change in any fundamental way since then. Factor in my earliest memory, and what I remember thinking and everything....
It's strange.
Posted by ducky (Member # 279) on :
There are some things that I wrote as a teenager that I would love to be able to read now. I wish I had kept them. I'm not sure I could find the freedom to write them now. Then I was not worried about how silly I looked. I just enjoyed the doing.
Do you write poetry now or is that something you used to do?
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I can check a work for scan and meter and so forth, just craftsmanship issues, but actually writing poetry about anything important to me... no.
I delight sometimes in playing with words and rhyme and expression, but it's really just a matter of arranging, like...painting a miniature figure. It's not a creative expression, just a technical exercise.
Posted by ducky (Member # 279) on :
It is the technical side of poetry that I really do not understand as I should. What I write is generally what flows into my heart. Sometimes it rhymes and sometimes it does not. I do love it when Poetry presents itself to my pen!
Posted by ducky (Member # 279) on :
Why are we the only ones on this thread?
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
You know, I was thinking of that myself, and I guess that it has something to do with the lack of activity in the forum of late in general.
Posted by ducky (Member # 279) on :
There must be some way to stir things up around here without starting a war! Any suggestions?
By the way, I submitted what I have done on my story to my writer's group. Now I'm waiting to see what everyone thinks. It is making me a little nervous! The battle is about to begin and I'm sure in the right frame of mind to write it now!
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Whoa, wait a moment! I never read past the part where they were telling the story of the children of the sweet rain and the black beast. The battle has to be much later, right?
So, how are you with battles generally?
Posted by ducky (Member # 279) on :
I don't know. I've never written a battle before. How would YOU fight creatures of the dark? I have characters who can ...well maybe I should send you what I have so far. I am enjoying writing it, but now comes the difficult part.
You doing any writing now?
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I am not currently engaged in writing. As for fighting in the dark, thats what I'm best at.
Posted by ducky (Member # 279) on :
Gee, maybe I should write you into the story!
And Mariah sent survivor deep into the bowels of the earth to hunt down the Dark One. She knew that of all the.......... Would you rather be a heavy, a Child of the Sweet Rain or an under-worlder?......he would be their best hope for victory!
Would you like a description of under-worlders so you can decide?
[This message has been edited by ducky (edited January 28, 2000).]
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Sure! But the most important thing about fighting in the dark is being able to stay quiet and use your ears.
Well, actually, being better than average in terms of muscle mass and having a tenacious grip are also really important.
And being cold blooded can be useful as well, though I'm not. Or not particularly.
Posted by Jeannette Hill (Member # 317) on :
Oh, so you two think you're the only ones out here, hm? I went to your website, Survivor, and read your poems, and your comments about them here. I completely understand the feeling of reading old work. (Which I define as work I wrote while in a different situation, not necessarily a large difference in time). I wrote some poems while my husband was in Kuwait that I would never had occasion to write had be been home. Not that they are about him, but I would never have had those feelings had he been around. So, now that we are together again, I read those poems in a sort of detached way and wonder why I didn't seek help at the time. I was in bad shape. As for you, Ducky, don't worry about the structure or meter of your poems. The prime function of the medium is to express your emotions, not fit into a form. Sometimes, my poems end up *very* structured, but it's on purpose and is very hard for me. It's much more important to me to express my feelings as truly as possible, to distill the innermost meaning of my emotions. This can be hard, too, but emotionally satisfying nonetheless.
Jeannette
Posted by ducky (Member # 279) on :
Welcome to the thread! I think you're right about poetry. Some of my stuff rhymes and is structured and some is very free form. Generally I just write what is in my heart. Have you posted anything to the poetry thread?
Survivor, Would you like to read what I've written so far? I will E-mail it if you would like to read it. Probably can't for a while. No computer. I'm in the library right now. System crashed and I moved away. I'm in Oregon now.
[This message has been edited by ducky (edited February 07, 2000).]
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
You moved away from your computer? That would make it difficult. But yes, I would like to see your poetry. I guess I like reading more than I really like to write. I'm not sure that's a good thing in a writer, but hey, it's what I am.
Posted by OmegaMan (Member # 606) on :
hey survivor, if your a writer how come i've never seen any of your stuff at books a million, Explain Yourself.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Hmmm, could be that you're blind... Posted by jackonus (Member # 132) on :
Maybe I'm internet challenged, but I tried to open a poem on your website and got a message that I wasn't a member. Hmm...
Is this some new poetry cult you've started?
Where do I join?
Onto the main topic, however, I have lots of poems I wrote long ago. I don't think I've ever improved on a single one of them and I haven't really tried except in one case (where I lost the original and had to replace it for a college journal submission). Unlike prose, I think poetry is difficult to edit later because the "space" I was in when I wrote it is gone. Most of the poems I write (wrote) came to the page fully formed and faded quickly if I didn't scribble them down like a madman possessed. I read them later and marvel at the content, wondering where it came from.
Of course, none of my poems are very good either. I have a friend who takes poetry very seriously and edits until the words go after the reader like a surgical laser. I think she is the best poet who ever lived and I keep bugging her to publish. She's Ann Sexton and Sylvia Plath but with more beauty and truth. I wish I could write half as well. My poetry is basically personal and really ought not to be shared (as no doubt any editor would agree). If I were ever to get serious about it, I think I'd have to scrap every bit of it that I ever wrote. Cool ideas, but poorly executed.
(A question, if something is poorly executed, does that mean it is just barely alive, after someone has tried to kill it, but failed?)
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Well, you could try to get them at Lost Songs instead. The xoom pages haven't been maintained as well or as recently (xoom does some things that annoy me, too).
[This message has been edited by Survivor (edited August 16, 2000).]
Posted by PatEsden (Member # 3504) on :
Yeh, I just read most of the thread before I realized it was a flashback.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
If you want to read my poetry, you have to read the whole thread.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Hey, the links still work, after all this time...
I, too, went through a poetry-writing period (approximately 1981 through 1985), though it was a little later in my arc of life and I was drawn to rhyme and meter. Then it stopped, save for the occasional outburst or sick parody or Internet Fan Fiction...but I think the doing of it improved my writing of prose along the way. (If I had any of my straight poetry posted anywhere, I'd put up a link...but I don't, and I don't want to bore you or take up space with a hundred clanky bad lines. There are some Internet Fan Fiction parodies out there, though.)
Posted by Ray (Member # 2415) on :
I remember going through a poetry phase my junior year of high school, although if I dug some up, I doubt any of it would be any good. At the time, I was concerned with rhyme and making the words sound lyrical, rather than trying to have any of it make sense. It really wasn't until after I stopped writing poetry that I started reading it voraciously. It's doubtful that I'll return to that genre in future writing, although if I ever do, I know how to better go about it.
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
Yeah, if you open a thread started by Survivor, chances are it will be over five years old and has been bumped by Statesman. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or an awesome thing.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Hey! Ahmmm...I still start new threads every now and then. Like, I'm sure I started one about Bishonens in Shonen, and one about Meyer's alternate cosmology theory, and stuff like that.
But yeah, it was pretty awesome to see a dozen really old threads bumped up to the top of the list. I feel like...um, Thomas Jefferson
The battle is about to begin and I'm sure in the right frame of mind to write it now!
