Me? Write Poetry?!

I mentioned yesterday that I have joined a creative writing class at my church. We met for the first time on Tuesday, and to say it was overwhelming would be an understatement!

Although I have been tapping into my creative side ever since I began blogging and became interested in photography, I am by no means artistic. I don't understand art. Quite frankly, some of it actually frightens me. I would have to say that I am pretty left-brained, and I just don't "get" art and artsy people. Consequently, when I found out the first two weeks we would be focusing on poetry, I had a mini anxiety attack. You want me to write poetry? Umm, does it have to rhyme? What about rhythm? Am I supposed to use iambic pentameter? My left-brained self REALLY wanted an exact formula to follow. Give me too much freedom to create, and I begin to panic.

Unfortunately, Laura, our "facilitator" (NOT our teacher ;-) gave us the freedom to do pretty much ANYTHING with our poems. She told us to write "lots and lots of brilliant poetry" before next week. Yeah, I'll get right on that :-P

Surprisingly, I have found it a lot easier than I had imagined to write poetry! I'm pretty sure it is terrible, and probably won't even compare to the work of the other artsy people in the class. However, I think I'm okay with that. I'm trying, and I'm having a lot of fun doing it! I haven't really sat down in a quiet room and tried to write at all. Instead, I have kept my trusty notebook with me most of the time, and when inspiration hits me, I'll jot my ideas down. Then later, I'll come back and try to turn them into a poem.

So far I have completed two poems. I don't feel comfortable enough to share them yet, but maybe by the end of the class I will be. I will tell you what they are about though, because I really liked the way the inspiration for the poems just hit me out of nowhere each time. The first poem is about my future baby. It was so cool that this baby won't even exist for months (wishful thinking) or years, but I was able to connect with him/her by writing a poem! Writing it was a really cool experience. Even though the poem itself is certainly nothing spectacular, I think it will be neat to share it with my first child someday :-) The other poem is a metaphor about the choices I make that will determine the rest of my life, written as a scenic bike ride. This poem really made me think as I was writing it, and it was therapeutic.

I'm excited and nervous about next Tuesday, because we will have a little workshop where we will all share two poems and critique them all. I will probably post about it next week.

I am surprisingly enjoying poetry. I'm glad we are tackling this first. If I can get through this, the next two sections will be even better and more fun. Next we are taking on creative Non-Fiction, and then Fiction.

I hope you are enjoying your week! I can't believe tomorrow is Friday already!