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Poetry intimidates me. I used to tell myself that I don’t love poetry. I was not fond of reading poems or writing one. I would rather read a novel or write fiction. Perhaps this attitude was influenced by the fact that I was not able to write any successful poem. I was intimidated by the thought that poems, although they come in short forms, require so much brainwork and time from the writer. I had to follow strict rules for my work to be considered poetic. It was for this reason that I always ended up with one-liners and crumpled papers.
The first batch of poems I was required to write in my Poetry 1 class under Prof. Ricardo de Ungria was probably the most difficult experience. I couldn’t decide whether or not writing a poem already provided with a subject was difficult. I have to say that it made things less difficult because the provided subject gave focus to my writing. What was difficult about it was the fact that I had to associate two totally different subjects into one poem. Love and avocado, for instance, gave me a hard time. I tried to use avocado as a metaphor for love. I focused so much on the connection I was trying to achieve without realizing that I was no longer making any sense. The following stanza is an example of my desperate attempt to relate the two subjects:
You speak of love.
It is crazy, I hear
like an avocado peeled,
sliced and grilled
dipped in a bowl filled
with soy sauce then chilled.
What I noticed about my first set of poems is that most of them didn’t make sense at all. Honestly, when I wrote these poems, my concern was more on the sound they produced than the sense they made. I learned in our C.W. 101 class last year that sound in poetry mattered more than sense. I interpreted the lesson wrongly that my poems turned out unsuccessful. I focused so much on the rhyme, alliteration and syllabication that I didn’t care if the imageries were vague or inappropriate. My poem “Where the Maya Sang the Sounds of Twilight” best examplified this experience.
Where the maya sang the sounds of twilight
And the trees’ trance in the forthcoming night,
I pedaled and pedaled before the wind
Through a sea of stones tarried to be seen.
This poem was supposedly a pentameter with a rhyming pattern. When I thought of pentameter, I only considered the syllables. The idea that I was able to produce a line with ten syllables was enough for me. In order to produce rhymes with the help of a rhyming dictionary, I started writing backwards. I didn’t prepare any theme for this poem. I was set to the idea that the rhymes would lead me to the end of the poem. Sense didn’t matter anymore. The second line, for example, did not support the idea of the first line. I just combined a group of words that sounded good to me and that they rhymed with the first line. I didn’t know exactly what “trees’ trance” meant and I didn’t care if it made sense as long as it was a form of alliteration. The idea and image produced in the fourth line was also vague. The whole poem was actually vague. I didn’t even understand what I was trying to say in this poem. This was the result of too much focus on the sound. I realized that even though sound mattered more than sense, it didn’t mean that I had to totally shut the poem from making any sense. Even my accentual poem didn’t have a central theme because my focus this time was on the accents. I didn’t even know how to count accents in a line because whenever I tried, I always ended up counting the syllables.
In my second set of poems, making an association between the subjects given was less difficult compared to the first one. Because of the things I learned from my experiences in writing my first batch of poems, I didn’t put much focus on the sound. Instead, I focused more on the grammar and the central theme of each poem, which is why there weren’t any rhymes except for the pantoum. Most poems in this batch were mimetic, thus easier to write. They didn’t require big imaginations. “Puberty,” for example, was a poem about discovering my own body with my hands. My ideas flowed in this poem because I based them on my experiences during adolescence. I was able to use a virtual dialogue, which was a new style to me. The problems I had, however, in this poem were the line breaks but they were not as terrible as the ones I had with “Apple of Ama’s Eyes.”
Ama, please tell me because I don’t quite
Understand why Kakah always gets the
Redder apple or the nice pink clothes that
I so much want to have. I want to know
Why you always present her to the guests
With pride while I wait in one corner for
You to call me and introduce to your
Colleagues. But you often forget that I
Exist. Is it because she’s the eldest?
Perhaps it’s because Kaka gets higher
Grades in school or the fact that she wears her
Veil and I don’t. Ama, please tell me why.
Since the poem was supposed to be in pentameter, some lines had to break at the wrong words. I later learned that I must not end my lines with conjunctions and linking verbs because they affect flow of the poem especially when read out loud.
It was in this batch of poems that I was able to experience difficulty combined with pleasure. It was my first time to learn about pantoum and write one. The fact that I had to write at least three stanzas in pentameter, with a rhyming pattern and lines I had to repeat in the next stanzas was more difficult than I imagined. Nevertheless, I felt excited to write one because I thought it was challenging. Although it required a total brainwork to think of ways that I would be able to use the lines in the next stanzas, I found pleasure in playing with ideas because I had no idea where they were leading to. It was a difficult kind of pleasure to write one stanza at the same time, looking forward to writing the next one. The pattern of the lines to be repeated was complicated but after a close study, I was able to manage understanding the sequence of lines and rhymes.
It took me a long time to finish my last set of poems. Perhaps it was because I found difficulty in writing the villanelle and the sonnet. Writing the villanelle was more challenging than writing the pantoum. It was hard enough to write one stanza with lines in pentameter, following a rhyming pattern. What made it harder, however, was the fact that I had to write five stanzas of three lines using rain and a book of poetry as subjects. I had no idea what to write about a book of poetry. I even made things more difficult by using two lines from John Donne’s “The Ecstasy” in my poem:
With a book in hand, I try to read Donne.
You wait all day, the same our postures were.
Not caring if you stay there until dawn.
With the haughty look I’ve been putting on,
You plead. And whilst our souls negotiate there,
You stand in the rain like a real moron,
Not caring if you stay there until dawn.
I didn’t realize that it was awkward to use old English with contemporary language in one poem. The syntax was wrong in the first stanza, second line. Meanwhile, the connection between the first and second lines of the next stanza was not clear. This is the result of an easy attempt in trying to get away with the hardship of explaining the significance of Donne in the poem.
Writing the sonnet was easier compared to writing the villanelle but only because I wasn’t aware of the rules regarding the subjects of each line. I didn’t know that the first four lines should describe the setting then the next four must show the theme and so on. What I knew was that a sonnet must contain 14 lines in pentameter (usually iambic) with a rhyming pattern that could either be Shakespearean or Petrarchan.
Generally, the most difficult part in writing a poem is how to start. It usually took me a number of crashes and erasures before I would find the appropriate line to begin with. In writing short stories, I could go on blabbing once I found the right ideas. Things are different in writing poetry. Since poems come in short forms, the words used must be carefully chosen. More often than not, when I write poems in free verse, I find it difficult to sustain the first set of lines that I wouldn’t know how to continue or where to end. In order for me to have a sense of direction in writing, I usually make out a pattern that would serve as my guide. The most common pattern I make is the repetition of the first line in each stanza. This way, my ideas pour out because they are centralized to the idea of this one line.
Among the things I learned throughout the course was that figurative language makes a good poem if it is used well. I’m still not used to using metaphors and symbols lest they would turn out vague. As of the moment, I am more concerned with the poem’s form. I try to improve my syntax, the line cutting and the sound the poems produce. I think I’ll consider using figurative language as I go through more experiences with poetry.
I’m still on the process of learning how to love poetry. It still intimidates me especially when I get to read difficult poems as well as the beautiful ones. Maybe this is because of my way of thinking that I will never be able to write poems as beautiful as the published ones I read. But as Isadora Duncan said, “It would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence.” It will probably take me a lifetime and endless passion to write one beautiful line or stanza. When time comes that I would be able to write a single stanza that I could truly consider a work of art (based on the standards I observed in the art of poetry), I would truly be satisfied.
The first batch of poems I was required to write in my Poetry 1 class under Prof. Ricardo de Ungria was probably the most difficult experience. I couldn’t decide whether or not writing a poem already provided with a subject was difficult. I have to say that it made things less difficult because the provided subject gave focus to my writing. What was difficult about it was the fact that I had to associate two totally different subjects into one poem. Love and avocado, for instance, gave me a hard time. I tried to use avocado as a metaphor for love. I focused so much on the connection I was trying to achieve without realizing that I was no longer making any sense. The following stanza is an example of my desperate attempt to relate the two subjects:
It is crazy, I hear
like an avocado peeled,
sliced and grilled
dipped in a bowl filled
with soy sauce then chilled.
What I noticed about my first set of poems is that most of them didn’t make sense at all. Honestly, when I wrote these poems, my concern was more on the sound they produced than the sense they made. I learned in our C.W. 101 class last year that sound in poetry mattered more than sense. I interpreted the lesson wrongly that my poems turned out unsuccessful. I focused so much on the rhyme, alliteration and syllabication that I didn’t care if the imageries were vague or inappropriate. My poem “Where the Maya Sang the Sounds of Twilight” best examplified this experience.
And the trees’ trance in the forthcoming night,
I pedaled and pedaled before the wind
Through a sea of stones tarried to be seen.
This poem was supposedly a pentameter with a rhyming pattern. When I thought of pentameter, I only considered the syllables. The idea that I was able to produce a line with ten syllables was enough for me. In order to produce rhymes with the help of a rhyming dictionary, I started writing backwards. I didn’t prepare any theme for this poem. I was set to the idea that the rhymes would lead me to the end of the poem. Sense didn’t matter anymore. The second line, for example, did not support the idea of the first line. I just combined a group of words that sounded good to me and that they rhymed with the first line. I didn’t know exactly what “trees’ trance” meant and I didn’t care if it made sense as long as it was a form of alliteration. The idea and image produced in the fourth line was also vague. The whole poem was actually vague. I didn’t even understand what I was trying to say in this poem. This was the result of too much focus on the sound. I realized that even though sound mattered more than sense, it didn’t mean that I had to totally shut the poem from making any sense. Even my accentual poem didn’t have a central theme because my focus this time was on the accents. I didn’t even know how to count accents in a line because whenever I tried, I always ended up counting the syllables.
In my second set of poems, making an association between the subjects given was less difficult compared to the first one. Because of the things I learned from my experiences in writing my first batch of poems, I didn’t put much focus on the sound. Instead, I focused more on the grammar and the central theme of each poem, which is why there weren’t any rhymes except for the pantoum. Most poems in this batch were mimetic, thus easier to write. They didn’t require big imaginations. “Puberty,” for example, was a poem about discovering my own body with my hands. My ideas flowed in this poem because I based them on my experiences during adolescence. I was able to use a virtual dialogue, which was a new style to me. The problems I had, however, in this poem were the line breaks but they were not as terrible as the ones I had with “Apple of Ama’s Eyes.”
Understand why Kakah always gets the
Redder apple or the nice pink clothes that
I so much want to have. I want to know
Why you always present her to the guests
With pride while I wait in one corner for
You to call me and introduce to your
Colleagues. But you often forget that I
Exist. Is it because she’s the eldest?
Perhaps it’s because Kaka gets higher
Grades in school or the fact that she wears her
Veil and I don’t. Ama, please tell me why.
Since the poem was supposed to be in pentameter, some lines had to break at the wrong words. I later learned that I must not end my lines with conjunctions and linking verbs because they affect flow of the poem especially when read out loud.
It was in this batch of poems that I was able to experience difficulty combined with pleasure. It was my first time to learn about pantoum and write one. The fact that I had to write at least three stanzas in pentameter, with a rhyming pattern and lines I had to repeat in the next stanzas was more difficult than I imagined. Nevertheless, I felt excited to write one because I thought it was challenging. Although it required a total brainwork to think of ways that I would be able to use the lines in the next stanzas, I found pleasure in playing with ideas because I had no idea where they were leading to. It was a difficult kind of pleasure to write one stanza at the same time, looking forward to writing the next one. The pattern of the lines to be repeated was complicated but after a close study, I was able to manage understanding the sequence of lines and rhymes.
It took me a long time to finish my last set of poems. Perhaps it was because I found difficulty in writing the villanelle and the sonnet. Writing the villanelle was more challenging than writing the pantoum. It was hard enough to write one stanza with lines in pentameter, following a rhyming pattern. What made it harder, however, was the fact that I had to write five stanzas of three lines using rain and a book of poetry as subjects. I had no idea what to write about a book of poetry. I even made things more difficult by using two lines from John Donne’s “The Ecstasy” in my poem:
You wait all day, the same our postures were.
Not caring if you stay there until dawn.
With the haughty look I’ve been putting on,
You plead. And whilst our souls negotiate there,
You stand in the rain like a real moron,
Not caring if you stay there until dawn.
I didn’t realize that it was awkward to use old English with contemporary language in one poem. The syntax was wrong in the first stanza, second line. Meanwhile, the connection between the first and second lines of the next stanza was not clear. This is the result of an easy attempt in trying to get away with the hardship of explaining the significance of Donne in the poem.
Writing the sonnet was easier compared to writing the villanelle but only because I wasn’t aware of the rules regarding the subjects of each line. I didn’t know that the first four lines should describe the setting then the next four must show the theme and so on. What I knew was that a sonnet must contain 14 lines in pentameter (usually iambic) with a rhyming pattern that could either be Shakespearean or Petrarchan.
Generally, the most difficult part in writing a poem is how to start. It usually took me a number of crashes and erasures before I would find the appropriate line to begin with. In writing short stories, I could go on blabbing once I found the right ideas. Things are different in writing poetry. Since poems come in short forms, the words used must be carefully chosen. More often than not, when I write poems in free verse, I find it difficult to sustain the first set of lines that I wouldn’t know how to continue or where to end. In order for me to have a sense of direction in writing, I usually make out a pattern that would serve as my guide. The most common pattern I make is the repetition of the first line in each stanza. This way, my ideas pour out because they are centralized to the idea of this one line.
Among the things I learned throughout the course was that figurative language makes a good poem if it is used well. I’m still not used to using metaphors and symbols lest they would turn out vague. As of the moment, I am more concerned with the poem’s form. I try to improve my syntax, the line cutting and the sound the poems produce. I think I’ll consider using figurative language as I go through more experiences with poetry.
I’m still on the process of learning how to love poetry. It still intimidates me especially when I get to read difficult poems as well as the beautiful ones. Maybe this is because of my way of thinking that I will never be able to write poems as beautiful as the published ones I read. But as Isadora Duncan said, “It would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence.” It will probably take me a lifetime and endless passion to write one beautiful line or stanza. When time comes that I would be able to write a single stanza that I could truly consider a work of art (based on the standards I observed in the art of poetry), I would truly be satisfied.
