Week 6, Entry 1

Last week's class on poetry, and particularly performance poetry, really opened my eyes to a new form of literature and entertainment. I had heard of performance poetry before and had even gone to some performances, but I never thought of it as something I could do myself. Emily's class really opened my eyes to the fact that English majors should not be at all shy about writing poetry. Whenever I attempted to write poetry, I always felt that everything I wrote down was trite and had been done a million times before. Using London as inspiration however lead me to realize that my day to day life can be incredibly unique if one just looks at the details.

To write my poem, which I ended up transforming into prose poetry, I walked around Greenwich and simply scrawled down images and sounds that I came across. I was surprised at how easily writing about my experience came to me. The best part was that it was totally and completely my own creation and experience. Psychogeography allowed me to use the world that surrounds me everyday to create poetry. It was a wonderful experience to find the literature and poetry in everyday life, and I saw parts of Greenwich I had never seen before, despite having stayed in the area for six weeks.

Another surprising occurrence during the poetry week was the fact that I was not at all anxious or embarrassed to read my work. I had taken a creative writing class before, and I was actually one of the students (embarrassingly) that refused to read work out loud. I was simply too ashamed of my work to ever let anyone but my professor read it. However, looking back on this final week I realize what a mistake that was. I felt completely comfortable around my peers and my teachers, and I loved hearing everyone's work and was surprised at how talented my classmates were. I took a lot away from my last week in London, and it has inspired me to keep on honing my poetry skills and to not be so shy when it comes to sharing my work. I am also going to keep these exercises in mind when I become a teacher, because I think they are truly magnificent and eye-opening. I think getting students to leave their comfort zone is probably the best thing that can happen to them. It has certainly been a great experience for me.