Normally I would picture a poet to be an artsy, exquisite, and delicate creature. One with a strong mind and nimble fingers to flutter about the keys like a butterfly. Not cautious but extremely curious. I've always been a lover of poetry, magnificent words that seemed to shiver and become tangible, and imagined the poet to be an artist with impeccable taste, a superfluous vocabulary, and a magic touch that brought words to life, literally. I never thought of my self as a poet but hey if it's an English assignment might as well take a shot at it.
While the ideas were whirling in my head I decided that the only way I could get started was to finally name the twister in my head and call it a "brainstorm". Just as a tornado spews out shreds of wood glass, concrete, the remains of houses and buildings that used to be, my brain began to spit out ideas that were extremely random, varied, yet built up to the same thing. To help us on our way to a successful poem, our teacher advised us to "capture a moment" and to write about some moments that just randomly stuck out in our minds. As you may or may not have seen from my previous posts, I traveled to Mombasa, Kenya over this past summer. Probably some of my favorite memories have their origins there. Three of my favorites were the smiling faces of the children we were working with, stargazing at a safari, and watching a sunset atop pride rock. In short they were all very stereotypical TIA things.
The next step was a stretch compared to the first. Robert Frost once said that a poem “begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a love sickness. It is never a thought to begin with.” That's exactly what this one was. I don't know whether it was the discontent I felt with the people around me or if the anger I had felt at the moment seemed to manifest itself into a poetry form. For years it must have been in my sub-conscience, building up until it exploded from my finger tips. I was mad, angry, and crying hot and salty tears as I wrote this. A reasonable explanation for this was that I was on my period, but I feel as if it was much more than that. My poem was about the "dystopia" that we live in today. Every complain that I had, every word that I had to swallow, every thought that I blocked from every getting past my mouth manifested itself into a harsh and vicious poem.
It was time for revisions. Presidential debates had been thoroughly persistent in annoying me. At first the beauty of the language used, the sophisticated communication skills, and opposing ideologies, philosophies, and policies intrigued me. But during the week leading up to the debate I had had enough. Enough with the commercials that lied, enough with the ignorance of people who weren't willing to see both sides of each issue. Enough with the hardcore, radical conservatives and liberals who would stick to their person for the sole reason that he was a democrat or republican; people who wouldn't decide on the policies. Enough with the ignorant masses which we call "Americans" who refused to do any research on the candidates before voting. And enough with the candidates who's main goals were to attract more voters, not do what was best for the country. I was sick and tired of it all. That's when my "poem" seemed to get a spark of light. Digging deeper into all the things that had maddened me, I realized that I was truly just mad at the fact that there was a clash of ignorance and that people were just to blind or arrogant to see the truth or work and compromise with each other. It reminded me of the "black and white" style of thinking that our teachers are always trying to pull us away from. Ha! The very thing they tell us not to do is done by the majority of the american population! Rather than it being black and white with the supposedly unreachable gray area in between, it was blue and red with a seemingly unreachable purple area in between! People call me strange for being a moderate, but all my political and policy related beliefs became part of that dystopia. And thus a poem on the world's clash of ignorance was created rather than a general overview of the things that I disliked. I was getting closer.
Our class had just begun to read King Lear written by William Shakespeare. It was filled with revolutions, one in fact stuck out to me. A theme of the young rising when the old fall. Already on my next draft: going back to the political debates, I realized that these ideas had to go. the ideas of "we" and "them". The idea that we were all segregated to the point in our ideas that there was no way people could live together. The younger and new generations of today seem to be leaning towards the more cooperative side, but if we don't feed these ideas, support, and nurture them, they will die out. I decided to be a bit more specific with the "clash of ignorance": I made the ignorant ones, some of the old ideas which have been downplaying us for the past few years, and I played that against new, fresh faces (aka the new generation) who was willing to see two sides of things and agree on things. Instead of isolating ourselves with our ideas and status, why cant we be as social as kindergartners, who are open to everything and anything?
It was now time for final draft. My last one was great. But what I didn't realize that this part of the poem was also reflective of me in a way that I didn't realize until half way through the poem. I have different view points from my own parents. I've grown up in a different time period, different country, different environment all together! I have different views on governmental policies, values, beliefs, religious viewpoints, education policies, etc. They are similar in many ways, but still extraordinarily different! Plus the text would be easier to connect with and more powerful if I had my own story weaved within it. But I released my clutch on this idea and allowed it to fly away. I thought the poem was fine.
Then came conference time. My teacher prodded and pushed me, digging deeper and deeper into the twists and turns of my mind till we finally discovered a strategy to approach an unfinished poem with. A monologue, he stated, would be the best to express what I was trying to say. We both thought it would be a more powerful and meaningful way to finish up the poem. But how? He proposed that I should tell my own story and thereby get the message across that there are conflicting viewpoints between the the young and the "older" ideas. The process began again. Racking my brain for moments or memories, looking for deeper meanings, and artfully chiseling away at unnecessary detail to make it as close to perfect as I could. And by the end, that was what I had created. My own story tole in a twisting rhythm, a storm of sorts to tell the confusing and extremely powerful experience that I had. Though the poem probably didn't shimmer and shiver to life as it did for me when I read professional poetry, it was a beautiful piece of art in my eyes.
So there it was. From being a stereotypical story about African sunsets to politics to clashes of ignorance and to my very own self, my poem now has meaning and definition. It has taught me who i am as a person, and why that buildup of anger that I seemed to have had in my first draft existed in the first place. Though it may seem odd, working backwards: From a national problem to myself as a person rather than the other way around, I am proud that I know a little bit more about myself and who I am. I am proud to know that I can acknowledge flaws in society, and hopefully one day I can work my way up to fixing them. This is just the first step. Thank you Mr. Allen.
