Prose can be just as poetic

I went to a reading by Alex Lemon this evening. For those who don't know of him, he is the author of Happy: a Memoir, and he is also a poet. His story was... well, a bit disturbing, to be honest, but the way he presented it- with excerpts from his memoir- was fascinating. I loved the writing style, he used- even his prose sounded rather poetic.

I'll admit, I'm a bit biased against contemporary poetry simply because I'm not used to reading it much, but it was sort of mesmerizing to listen to. I can appreciate his style of writing- and the emotion he puts into reading it.

A proper introduction...

I suppose I ought to write a proper entry regarding what this blog is about and why. My previous entry covered the bare basics- that this is indeed a poetry blog, and I'm not sure the exact angle that I intend to take. For the time being, well, I'll tackle whatever comes to mind on the subject; most likely, I'll spend several entries discussing specific poems, of writers both published (such as Emily Dickinson, a favorite of mine) and unpublished (I've found quite a few poets that seem only to exist online- DeviantArt is a wonderful place). I might even sneak in a few of my own poems here and there.

So why am I writing a blog about poetry in the first place? Well, I've actually been writing for a little over two years, if I recall correctly. I can't say how or why I began writing- perhaps it was a gradual thing; I've enjoyed playing with language for I don't know how long. I enjoyed puns and rhymes and riddles and the like. But as I recall it, I actually started writing poetry when one day (the summer between 8th and 9th grade, I think), a catchy phrase occurred to me, and I sat down and wrote off of it, until I had roughly a ten-stanza narrative. I liked how it turned out, and after that I began to write much more frequently, whenever something popped into my mind- when I had muse, if you will.

Looking back, I dislike most of my older poems- a lot of it is phrased badly and forced rhymes, but I like the ideas in most of them. A few of them are genuinely decent, in my opinion, but I suppose that's really for readers to decide. I might link to some of my stuff now and then, but I'm fairly self-conscious about my older stuff, as I'm a mild perfectionist (if indeed such a thing exists).

Rhyme and Reason...

Admittedly, readers, I suppose you could say that this blog doesn't have much of a rhyme or reason at all just yet. But give it time; I hope that both will be in abundance here soon enough.

Allow me to explain. This, quite simply, is a poetry blog. That's about as much as I can tell you at this point; it's about as much as I know.

I'll see what I can do to remedy that before the next entry.