I feel like I'm breaking up with Poetry
I feel like Poetry is breaking up with me

This past Tuesday in Poetics class one of my pieces was discussed. It was found to have abstractions, and the criticism from my instructor was constructive for the most part, but when another student tried to make a case for these abstractions, a telling dialogue ensued (right in the middle of the critique of my piece).

The student said that any number of MFA programs and English departments at other institutes of higher learning might belong to a different school of thought than my professor or those at our specific university, and wasn't this really just a matter of preference? The instructor assured him that my poem, while the beginning of what might be a wonderful poem, does not fall in line with the way that poetry is being written in this century at this time. He added that if one simply wanted to put one's poetry on a private Web site for people to read, then one may do as one wished, but that in order to be venerated, published, etc., one would do well to adhere to the principles of poetry that are currently in vogue.

In the same breath, I must add that many of my fellow students returned their copies of the poem with very encouraging comments, several of them appreciated what I was trying to do.

But to be told that you have the beginnings of a good poem when you have slaved, tightened, and hacked the original to death just to make something streamlined and effective... Well let's just say that it left me feeling impotent.

After every poetry workshop meeting last semester I left feeling supremely out of step, feeling that I have no idea how to write a poem. Now I understand that my philosophy of poetry is largely opposed to that of my program. And I have more than a year left. I'm going to tough it out because the thought of quitting is reprehensible to me, but I wonder how this will turn out now. It seems that it cannot really go well from this point.

Thinking back to the 3-ring circus of a reading in Hampden this past December, thinking ahead to the feeling of disaster I have regarding my continued education, it seems to me the bitter end of a once passionate affair. But then I suppose that it's poetry's illusions I recall. I really don't know poetry at all.