He Made Me Hate Poetry

I took a class last semester 
creative writing 101 

the teacher challenged everything
that I had ever thought about poetry
he said " No thinking outside the box"
He was full of rules and control

I'd always though poetry had no boundries
and that it was at it's greatest the first time
the author jotted it down on paper.

He was all about revisions.
But How do you revise a poem?
Doesn't that just erase the point 
you were trying to get across 
when you first wrote it? 

He told me sayin things like love, 
pain, death, sadness was too abtract
so he challenged me to go without using those words.
I'll admit my descriptions got better but 
it took all the fun out of everything. 

I wasn't in the business of writing poems
to make it into something perfect.
Poetry was something that I used to release.
Grammatically correct or not it helped me to 
gain some inner peace. 

So ultimately in that class I didn't do well. 
In that class I rebelled the entire time. 
His definition of poetry were so completely
different from mines. 

I want to know if your a real poet
or even a real professor 
if you fail to inspire?
Copyright © | Year Posted 2010

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September 20, 2010 at 3:23 AM
Hi Shahana-- that sure sucks to have a creative writing professor who made you hate poetry-- sad really how some can undo that? This actually reminds me of my own 6th grade teacher who was the adviser of our school newspaper-- she killed writing in me for some years-- I submitted articles for that paper but she always changed my writes totally different--was truly a slap to the face but I was a helpless wuss-nice to see that that spark for poetry has been rekindled for you--don't let it die
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