Reflection for My Modernist Poetry

(SEE POEMS IN PREVIOUS ENTRY)

I didn't even know where to start when i began to write my poetry. It was hard to make a connection between what Stein was writing and what it was that she was describing. I start off by looking at what Modernist Poetry really is. I found that it is characterized by two features, free verse and move away from the Romantic idea of an unproblematic poetic "self" directly addressing an equally unproblematic reader or audience.

Once i chose my title's for each of the three specified areas, the word just started to come out. Whether it makes sense to a reader, i am not sure, but it was a new level of writing, and an understanding within myself, that i was not aware i had. I found it easier to use free verse, the various styles of poetry, because there was no concentrations on meter or rhyme but still has recognizable characteristics of poetry.

The experiments were even more fun to me. Who knows if i was even doing any of this correctly, but i gave it a shot, and i had fun doing it. For my first part of my poem, OBJECTS, i decided to re-write it backwards line for line from the end to the beginning. I found that even completely distorted and re-arranged, the poem still has meaning and makes sense. Second, for the FOOD part, i decided to cut the poem into pieced and use the first and last work to create a new section for the poem. Not only was this fun, and an interesting new way to look at the poem, but it to still made sense at the end. It really does show how words, and what they actually mean, can still resemble what it aims at describing, even after cutting and piecing they previous in a random manner. In fact, after these two experiments, i found i was kind of strange in a creepy way that it all still worked out. Finally, for the ROOM section of the poem, i decided to take a poem by Katherine Mansfield entitled "Camomile Tea" and re-write my poem between each of her lines. This was the only experiment that did not come out as smooth as the other, although it too had meaning that made sense to me, the writer. (maybe wouldn't make sense to the reader).

As i concluded with the poem writing and experiments i learned more about myself and about the art of poem writing. I have never really been a great poet before, nor do i think i have the potential to become a great poet, but an activity such as this allows me to realize how words have many different meanings and evoke many different emotions. To one person a word may mean something totally different, and i think that is the beauty of it. Not all poems have to mean the exact same thing to everyone. Own interpretations and opinions are just as influential.