Poetry and I

        I hate poetry. I'm really bad at it, and I have no patience for it. When I start reading it, I stop almost immediately because I don't understand it. Sleeping With the Dictionary was no exception. Well, it was kind of an exception. I read All She Wrote and I thought this poetry book would be different. I really liked this one because I related to it on some level. When I am put into social situations (like all of life), I usually end up doing something weird. Or, in the case of teachers, I usually abuse their trust in my character by turning in assignments late or not at all. I try really hard not to, but it always happens. I'm not an awful person, so when I screw things up, I apologize for them. My apologies, however, usually come out sounding like excuses, and that's what this poem sounds like to me. It sounds like a lot of apologetic excuses. And I guess I relate to that because I'm a sorry excuse for a person. Ha.
        I thought I had good momentum after the next entry, but I hit a wall when I got to Any Lit. I hated it because I didn't understand why she thought it was a poem. I understood that the first part of the sentences started with a yoo sound because they started with the word "you"and the second parts started with an em sound because they started with the word "me." I suppose I understand its inclusion in retrospect. Ask Aden is my favorite because it was simple, I'm a simple girl, and it doesn't take much to entertain me. It reminded me of being a kid with a kind of wide-eyed wonder.
        The book lost me at Black Nikes. I got frustrated because after such smooth sailing, I didn't immediately understand this one. It didn't help that when I skipped it, I encountered Blah-Blah. And every entry after it seemed to have a more ambiguous meaning than the last. I put the book down and  I found out that she was an older lady. I tend to have more patience for older people because I respect their their experiences and hardships, and I think patience is the very least that they deserve. After reading the interview,with her, I picked the book back up, and I'm glad that I did because some were funny (Kamasutra Sutra), some hit home for ineffable reasons (Eurydice), and some were insightful (Exploring the Dark Continent). I think I"m better for reading these even though, for the most part, the meanings still elude me.

To Talk About Myself and Genre (x_x)

        I'm not exactly sure what to say about my writing. It's usually in the first person, though I've been forcing myself to use third person lately. I usually lean toward funny or romantic (or both) when writing stories. I only write short stories because I don't have the discipline or self-confidence to go any longer than that. I recently finished a short story entitled Almost There (after a groundbreaking 1969 novel titled I'll Get There, It Better Be Worth the Wait of which it's loosely based) that was surprisingly well-received. I'm being pushed to make that one longer, but I'm running into the aforementioned problems in my plight.

        I have enjoyed the Creative Writing program here so far. My last teacher was Aaron Burch and he was a great teacher. He had a laissez-faire approach to teaching this subject which was was great for me. I don't really think that this is a subject that can be micromanaged. He was open to suggestion and was easy to talk to and readily available. Those qualities were very helpful in a Creative Writing teacher.

        Genre, to me, is just the different categories pieces of writing go into. These categories can be defined by the topic or its similarity to other pieces of writing. Different genres like mystery or romance can easily be distinguished from each other because they don't cover the same topics or have enough similarity to be lumped together. The exact same thing should go for different genres such as poetry or prose, but there are certain types of poetry that read like prose (like epic poetry), so the lines are blurred there and it's not as distinguishable. (I didn't know there was a difference between genre fiction and literary fiction and I still don't understand the difference.)

        I honestly don't think I've had any experience with reading or writing transgenre or anything that falls outside of traditional genre categories. I don't read or write nearly as much as I used to and when I do, it's usually pretty conventional. I have no problems with reading outside of the box, I just haven't had many opportunities to do so. Like I said before, comedy and romance are usually what I write about in my works because that's really all that I have any experience in. I'm hoping that as I get older I can better write about other topics as I experience them.