I still love fluffy!

From reading the poetry submissions from the Writing Contest, I, like Katie, was looking for the Great American Poetry of the 21st Century but instead I received anything but great. Some of the poems were cliches, bad metaphors, even one where I wanted to kick the person for using repetition. Urgh, repetition, it can only be used if you are intending to make a statement. Not filling the page. I read a few poems, however, that really came through as strong ones. There was one about a ship sailing in turbulent seas, and they were sailing through arctic storms, and I really felt like that poem was taking me somewhere. Another one, about a graveyard, was very harsh and concrete about its imagery, but it made sense to me. The writer wasn't morbid, he was making a point, and did it well. Sometimes poets make such a big deal that they think that they're writing good poetry, that it comes out as a forced attempt at brilliance. Even though I feel for them, they need to realize that sometimes poetry does not have to sound brilliant in order to be brilliant. Insipid!

I believe that great writers create literature, not because they know the ins and outs of metaphor and great allusion and good cacophony, but they just want to draw the reader in to their world. They want to reach out and grab somebody and bring them into the conversation. Yes, it does take a heightened knowledge to write something great, but there's the passion, the need to write, that matters most of all. I don't think the stuff I write is worthy of publishment, but I still know the passion and need to write that makes it worthwhile. Yes, in our class, we talked about writing being a royal pain, but it's a pain I want to endure. It's the conversation I want to share with others.

I think that I've become a better tutor because we have talked about empathizing with those beginning writers. I know now how to understand the fact that some people who come into the Writing Center need to learn about commas and grammar, and we can listen patiently and teach them the way how to work through it. That's a very valuable thing for me to discover, that I can help (could this be?) people bring a mountain down to an anthill. That's what tutoring should be about.