Saturday, April 19th 2025: On Poetry

I've been meaning to read some poetry written by local (Indonesian) authors. I've seen many English poetry books being sold at my nearest bookstore and I've always taken the chance to peek at the contents. I haven't bought a poetry collection from that specific shelf but I've been eyeing a digital subscription that would let me access a huge selection of books. This is neither here nor there but Gramedia weirdly categorizes some poetry book as fiction while others get tagged as non-fiction? So I can't just purchase the cheaper non-fiction or fiction option, I gotta buy the whole package if I wanna read the poetry books.

To be honest, it's really nothing special. One author I've read is notorious for publishing so many books within such a short timeframe that his "poetry" reads more like a train of thought with line breaks(!) But i'll let you in on a little secret, I've been meaning to write a poetry book after my poetry zine release. Like, a proper book, maybe around 100 pages or so. That's a tall task. Master poets usually take years or not decades to amass a decent collection of poetry. But I'll try, it's good practice

I don't know how to categorize my poetry. Sure, it's amateurish, but I like 'em. I put a lot of heart and soul into it. Maybe I use a lot of rhyme in a poetry scene that prioritizes meter instead. That's just my Indonesian tendencies showing through. I'm terrible at meter and using any kind of feet. I much prefer my safe bubble of rhymes and standard 4-line stanzas

I've been tugging the lines between overt and covert in poetry for a while now. I'm a pretty blunt person and that shows in my poetry. Sometimes I use flowery language but I bring it back in the last or second-to-last stanza and say what it's all about. Maybe I'm telling too much in my poetry? But different people react different to my writing. Some are used to the oblique nature of poetry while others appreciate the overtly blunt messaging that I slip in by the end, like a pretty bow to tie everything together.

One of my favorite past times is reading the "poetry" tag on neocities. It's so much fun reading how each individual approaches the medium. There are trends and motifs throughout, for sure, but each poet will have a distinct style and likes referencing specific themes repeatedly.

I miss being in school. I want to be exposed to more poetry and dissect it. I should really just bite the bullet on that subscription

Oh! Today I hung out with my friends. One friend I only meet once a year(!) I'm so happy I got to see him. I gave him a friendship bracelet and a copy of my zine, because I have two and since I won't be seeing him in a year I might as well give it to him. We talked over lunch and had fun catching up with eachother. This month has been great for my mental health an social battery. I've getting just the right amounts of stimuli and life has never been this much worth living.