Love - Hate Relationship with Poetry

     Throughout my many years at school poetry was always an obstacle that I tried to avoid. I found poetry tedious and boring, always requiring me to think outside the box and be original. You can say ignorance is bliss, because for several years I always told others and myself that, "I suck at poetry, and that I hate it." This quickly changed when I went into grade nine, and I had Mrs. Wilson as my teacher. We had to do a poetry assignment where we had to write multiple different poems based off of one theme. I hated the process, the countless minutes of me staring at my screen blanking on how to start, how to continue or how to end each of my poems. I put all I could into those poems but I was not sure whether they were good enough to get me a decent mark. I waited anxiously for a week, and when I finally got it I was shocked, I had got ninety percent. The best part though was that she came up to me, and told me in person how much she liked them and how she recommends me to submit one of my poems to a poetry book that Lourdes publishes every year. That one incident in grade nine gave me the confidence I needed to really try and develop my skill in poetry, and ever since then I have improved greatly. Poetry to me is all about self-expression, about how you are able to translate raw emotion at one point in time to written word. To this day I still hate the gut wrenching process of developing poems from nothing to a piece of art. Through the last couple years and especially doing this poetry assignment, I have forged a greater appreciation towards poetry, and the end result of putting so much thought and emotion into one piece of writing. To the point where I feel a great attachment to ever word I write, because it's a part of me. Whether I'm aware of it or not I write about what is transpiring in my life, for example a poem I just wrote called Forever Changing represented my constantly changing point of view, interests, emotions and the future I see for myself, but originally it was supposed to be a poem about autumn and how the seasons change. Poetry is a method of stress relief, a way to release any built up feelings that is residing below the surface. Poetry has shown me the beauty in simplicity, to just write and keep it simple and to not over complicate it, and this has transferred to my everyday life whether it be at work, at home or at school, poetry has many underlying messages that can be learnt from. Poetry and me may have a love - hate relationship but if anytime I feel dreadful I will write, and I recommend to anyone to write what they feel at that moment they will not regret the outcome.