Poetry Reflection

                 I am very proud that I have been able to finish this poetry collection with my best effort.  Despite some writer's block, there were a few things that inspired me enough to complete this site.  I had been given an assignment to read a collection of poetry written by one author.  Out of several suggestions, I chose John Lennon.  His "poetry" was not what I expected.  He liked to misspell words on purpose, which I interpreted as testing the reader's attention to detail.  I found that in much of his "poetry", if one was not paying attention, instead just scanning through the book, one would miss subtle misspellings and strange made-up words.  However, one of his "poems" in particular struck me as genius: "Be Were Wolf Of Limitations".  It consisted of phrases, common sayings, idioms, and even song titles seamlessly connected together through one or more syllables, sort of like stream of consciousness writing taken to a whole new level.  This acted as a sort of template for my list poem "Oy Oy Oil Shoot Your I'm Outraged." It is written in much the same style, except mine has line breaks where the phrases would meld together.  I was also inspired by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which I make reference to in several of my poems.
                 My themes are fairly diverse, but I will attempt to make as plausible a connection between a few of them as I can.  My nature poem "Invasion of the Clouds" depicts how nature can be both kind and cruel (HUMAN traits).  My list poem's theme concerns the concern over the Gulf Oil Spill (caused by carelessness on the part of HUMANS), and is designed to attempt to depict the frenzied whirlwind of news coming from all sorts of outlets.  When one reads it, I intend it to make them sort of picture someone who is watching TV and who keeps changing the channel, hearing about nothing but the Oil Spill.  This helps cement the grave importance of the matter into the reader's mind.  My social concern poem uses both this disaster and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill of 1989 as examples to support the themes that after we (HUMANS) make serious mistakes, we need to learn from them to prevent them from reoccurring, and that harnessing oil to use as a fuel source is not worth its environmental impacts.  My narrative poem's theme is that one person's achievement can represent an achievement for all HUMANity.  My found poem's theme is that there are many choices one (HUMAN) can make in life that can double back and intersect in unpredictable ways, and that one must take cues from oneself and from the world around them if one wants to take a desirable path in life.  All of these concern, whether directly or indirectly, humans or human-like traits, and in most of the poems, how we negatively affect the environment.
                  I learned that that poetry can have no, few, or many rules and forms to follow, depending on what kind of poem it is.  We did echo, found, free verse (no rules), poetry with a requirement of 10-12 syllables per line, and much more.  I found it hard to commit completely to free verse, because rhyme helps to guide me, and I can create new lines more easily because the possibilities are narrowed down since it has to rhyme with a previous line, and the poem sort of helps write itself. 
                  I would be lying if I said that this project wasn't extremely stressful for me.  I started Poetrility for an English assignment in May of 2010, when Summer was just over the horizon.  For the first time in my school-attending life, I didn't care about school any more.  I needed a break from all the stress, and Summer was the perfect opportunity to relieve the pressure. So, I used it as my topic for my acrostic poem.  I feel that there is a valuable lesson to be learned from this: Wistful thinking can sometimes help you get through the day, and reach that day's goal, too.