Saturday, April 26th 2025: (Still) On Poetry

Ive read 8+ poetry books written by Indonesian authors and I've come back with a few thoughts, a few analyses, if you will.

First off I've learned what not to do when writing poetry. A lot of what I read came off as bland, uninspiring, too much telling instead of showing, and the themes of love often fall flat because they never approach it in a novel or poetic way. Second of all, when some people do use free verse, they're not harnessing the full potential of it in breaking its form. Yes, you can break free verse forms, funnily enough, by subverting expectations and patterns you've set up in the beginning or throughout the poem. I felt like much of the traditionally published books don't have an eye for "that special sauce" something that makes you pause reading and think about the poem for more than 10 seconds, since much of it could be read quickly and without much pondering; that's why I was able to breeze past 8 books within more or less a day. Lastly, I think readers deserve better.

I've been thinking more about poetry now, reading a lot on neocities (I'll need to sort out my poetry site recs soon!) and overall thinking about the direction of my poems. Do I want to make it more accessible and instagram-quotable or more esoteric and out-there? I do feel like, after presenting my newer and more vague poems to non-poetry people, they tend to be confused what it's "supposed to be about." which is fine! poetry takes time to learn, even reading poetry is a skill that is often looked down upon. Maybe that's what I want to change. Readers deserve a choice in what type of poems they want to read, not everything has to be written in plain language and free verse.

Oh, to give you an example here's an exerpt, from the book Something to Remember Me By by Raissa Almira

If you don’t want to end up being my muse—
the inspiration to all the work that I do..

Then stop being so mesmerizing,
enthralling,
enchanting,
and all of the other beautiful adjectives that more or less represent,
the fascinating person that you are.

I don't like this poem because it does not try to be poetic, in the slightest. "and all of the other beautiful adjectives" basically spits in the face of poets who do describe the things that go on in a scene or poem- you know, their job. To describe things. A lot of poems I've read are somehow even worse than this, they have no soul or effort put into it, and I'm being cut-throat here because this was traditionally published! Maybe the editors aren't equipped to edit poems? A handful from other authors did seem to have needed some proofreading... "but aren't you being too harsh on people whose mother tongue isn't English?" you ask. I, too, am not a native english speaker! and I don't think we should be lowering our standards for traditionally published, "mainstream" poetry! Readers deserve better than this. Heck I deserve to be reading more interesting poems!

I could go on and on about the bad poems I've read this week, but it's time to lock in on my own poetry writing and decide what direction I want to take. Sometimes I feel like, due to my autism, I have a hard time writing and reading poems that are multi-layered. I like being blunt, but I also majored in English so I've picked up skills needed to dissect and write interpretations of metaphors, symbolism, and other literary devices. And yet I also feel like the layman doesn't have the skills needed to read a poem, so they default to bad instagram poetry written by and for people who don't read poetry.

I've been watching some videos from the youtube channel Roughest Drafts to get a glimpse into how a specific person would approach critiquing a poem. What I've gathered is Man, I need to get myself into a writing guild or workshop. Seriously! I think my friends are sick of me talking about poems all the time! but I need to get it out of my system somehow. I need to be able to talk about the devices I'm using and the motifs I've peppered throughout and the intent behind each stanza but I need to!! find other people first!!!! who share my interests!

Maybe I need to make more annotated poetry, but also I wanna keep it as a surprise!! I wanna be able to write poems and traditionally publish it!!! I wanna flex!! I wanna surprise people by being able to be a published writer!! Im punching the air right now. I want to do so many things but I have so little time. That's a lie, I'm still a NEET. But I am dividing my time between convention prep and everything else.

Oh, I haven't finished my train of thought earlier. I think I'll try to find a sweet spot between esoteric and grounded. Usually by the second to last or last stanza I like to write what the poem is about, altough a bit on the nose for people who do read poems, is still vague enough for the average non-poetry reader. I want people to discover how fun it is dissecting a piece and spending more than 15 seconds reading a 1-stanza poem. I also want to experiment with styles. My friend said that my writing style is "twee tumblr" and I laughed and agreed with her, basically. So I'm trying to balance the bluntness and accessibility of pop poetry while trying to tap into the more highbrow and vague part of the genre.

My goal is to write about... dozens of poems... and if I manage to write one a day I could have my manuscript done by the end of the year. Then I'll have to wait another 6 months to wait for a reply from the publisher. Yeay. In the meantime I should really get a job, huh. That's all for today! Take care all of you.