I started writing poetry in high school freshman year after my parents took me out of public school. They sent me to the Catholic High School a few towns away where I knew virtually no one, had to wear a uniform skirt, and saw more drugs and alcohol than I've ever seen in my life. That freshman year I watched people drink during school, get high in the doorways at the ends of the halls, and drop acid in the woods on the bike path in front of the school grounds. I remember seeing football players snort coke off of a bench, and thinking "how does nobody see this shit?!"

![child-360791_1920.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmSFzuMrtKFy2Atk9a5BwrfEiddhKb2zikHje79gGy3HGU/child-360791_1920.jpg)

When I eventually transferred to the public high school my sophomore year I didn't even see cigarettes at the school. The next bottle of beer I saw was my senior year. Talk about expectations and reality flipping; my parents thought that the Christian education would come with positive influence and wholesome morals, but it was worse than the established friendships and culture of the public school. 

I wrote terrible poetry during my high school years. It was bad. I mean, awful. But I didn't know that at the time. At the time, I thought it was deep, meaningful, soulful. I thought my strict rhyme and structure with repeating stanzas in four line alternating couplets were so awesome people NEEDED to read them. Thankfully I didn't actually start sharing my poems until my first creative writing class. Even then, they were not very good. 

![fear-2903342_1920.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVvUm18EnhFoAfFduh6pEJLVWN3nxuUqhDnVbzWLQHYv8/fear-2903342_1920.jpg)

Like most people I wrote my feelings. I wrote the obscure abstract concepts I was wrestling with: death, loneliness, difference, suffering, doubt, pain, longing. I would write something like this:

Walking the world dreaming of you,
The darkness descending on me,
This rumor of pain is new,
Wandering around lost trying to see.

I'm laughing a little bit because writing like I wrote in high school is very difficult now. What you see in that four line stanza is a basic rhyme scheme ABAB (where the last word in each line rhymes with every other line). There is also vague, abstract thoughts. I may be "feeling" like darkness is crowding around me. I may feel like my head is clouded in shadowy mists because I can only think of that boy, but I wrote, "darkness descending on me."  In my effort to document my feeling, I just threw out some vague shadowy poorly relatable trite lines. 

The benefit of reading my own words is that I know what I'm thinking when I see them. I read the words, "this rumor of pain is new," and know that it is just a cool sounding phrase. There is no actual rumor, there is no real pain. I can project some insecurities to that line where I can imagine my family and friends talking about me behind my back about why I'm not married yet. That doubt and fear exists inside me, but the "rumor of pain is new," does nothing to evoke that immediately, and if a reader who didn't have the privilege of being inside my head came across this they would not care. Why would anyone expend any mental effort of delving into the nuance of your obscure abstract thought or feeling? They won't! It is too difficult. 

Hell, people will barely spend time reading a status post longer than 240 characters on facebook. How often do you click the, Read More... tag? Twitter is so successful because it forces conciseness. It forces brevity and directness. I sometimes think Twitter is the best thing to happen to poetry in our modern times. We've become true wordsmiths with the constraint of 140 characters (now more!).  But I digress. 

The last line of that example stanza is the most obscure. It is the most abstract. 

"Wandering around lost trying to see."

Ugh. I have so many questions now when I'm reading. Are you actually wandering, moving from place to place, or are you stuck in your small town. Is "wandering around lost" a metaphor for how you're feeling? like you don't know what you're doing? What are you trying to see? How does it connect to the previous statements in the poem? See what? And trying? Can you use a better word?

Writing is about the readers. Good writing changes the reader in some fashion. It gives the reader new insight, or knowledge, or perspective that they didn't have or were too lazy to discover on their own. Beginning poetry without revision is like finding a shiny rock that in the discovery moment you felt the soulful pulse of the universe flowing through your blood, raging through the winds as the leave-less winter trees bent to the cold uncaring breath of time. The context, the thoughts you had just before, the smell of the path wet with melted snow refrozen that night, and the bite of frost on your cheeks all played a part in giving you that epiphany one seeing that rock. So you take it, bring it to school, and show your friend the rock, grasping to explain the feeling and they're like, "wow. A rock. So anyways, he called me last night, and I was like, "John, I'm busy with dinner right now. Call me back in 13 minutes when I'm done with my peas."

You had this profound experience that is worth sharing! It is what life is; noticing and communicating with the divine in the mundane. Yet no one else understands, or they don't connect with you when you attempt to tell them. They must be shallow selfish fuckers!  You feel alone, lost, hurt. Betrayed even when in your expression of vulnerability they shrug off your well crafted thoughts and insight to talk about how they take 13 minutes to eat a serving of peas at dinner. 

It is your fault. It is my fault for writing poorly. We may have those emotions, those feelings so intense and overwhelming we need to gush them onto paper, page, screen, but unless we refine the delivery, revise the language to be effective, it is just random gobbly gook readers will not care about. They'll dismiss it as readily and as quickly as they do a boring old rock you found on the path to school.

Abractions are boring. Do you even remember the line, "darkness descending on me?" I wouldn't blame you if you forgot it already.  It is such a vague and obscure reference to depression, solitude, loneliness and general brooding there is no reason to remember it. Look instead at John Keats' line about depression/anger/sadness from  http://www.bartleby.com/101/628.html "Ode on Melancholy:"

"Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
 
  Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
 
    And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes."

My god this is beautiful. If your lady flips the fuck out, and we know that all anger comes from disappointment, hurt, and inner suffering, let her rave, let her rage. Hold her hand and listen to her wigging out, and just drinkin the uniqueness of her eyes, feed on her vitality and exist in that moment where you communicate with the divine by acknowledging the beauty of your lady's unique existence. Keats doesn't say any of those emotions. There is no obscurity or abstract thoughts here. He simply says, "if your woman gets pissed, hold her hand, let her scream, and feed on her beautiful eyes." His words are better. 

Keats used imagery to convey a profound abstract concept. The words themselves were not abstract. That is the struggle for writers. That is the struggle for poets: discuss the sublime without mentioning it; deliver the sublime through images grounded in reality and experience. 

Look at the images Keats uses in these lines: mistress, rich anger, soft hand, her rave, feed, peerless eyes. Most of these words are attached or are themselves, action words. "Rich anger shows," describes someone raging out. Did you see something in your mind's eye to describe, "mistress, some rich anger shows?" I did. I get a great vision of me throwing at chair across a room because my ex was such a fucking tool and not listening to me. 

Go back to my bad stanza. Did you see any image when you read, "Walking the world dreaming of you?" Probably not. If you did it was a vague, formless shadow on a beach. It is a vague, obscure, abstract image with no connection. There is no language to guide the reader's thoughts. 



What is abstraction?

existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence.
"abstract concepts such as love or beauty"

Remember that those lofty ideals like "love," "beauty," and "anger," are all great things to write your poem about. Use images to convey or illustrate those things! And that is difficult! It is hard! We revere the people that do it masterfully, like Keats, and forget the hordes of others that give us vague, boring generalities without guidance. 



Actions for better writing: 

1. Each reader is unique, and your poem is a bridge into your mind. You have to make the trail so easy, so simple that even an idiot can get there. Use breadcrumbs, or let out string so the town moron can save you from the witch, the minotaur. Images are universal, and your words to describe your emotions are confusing and vague, which leads to forgetting and boring.  

2. No thoughts but in things. If you want to describe a thought, use a thing, an image, a series of actions which SHOW the thought. 

3. Show, don't tell. 

"She wiped her eyes when he came into the kitchen for breakfast; not so he could see. No, she turned as he entered, lifting her sleeve to her face and then thrusting her arm up to free it from the excessive length. She shook the sweater to her elbow. When she turned to put his cereal bowl down the only indication of her crying was the slight redness in her eyes."

or

"She was so sad and depressed at him. When he came to breakfast she was so upset she could barely give him his cereal bowl. She was ashamed that she was crying and didn't want him to see." 

Images are better. Use your words to say what is happening. Let the reader infer meaning. Your words literally speak for themselves. 

3. Revise! Edit! Go back and improve your work! It gets better and makes your craft stronger. 


You'll get better.

![text-1318187_1920.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmR66PrvmzmRSqzobYoGemHdy42MLj5ChvZN212tYC5ADu/text-1318187_1920.jpg)

Let me know what you think. Was this helpful? Share, comment, or disagree with me below.