Contrasts and Opposites

Thanksgiving and Black Friday – these are two consecutive days that go hand-in-hand. Lately, it seems as if these two days are being treated as twin days, much like the large double doors at the front of a smart shop with great sales, am I right? These two days usher in the holiday shopping season and for me, this is where I draw the line at Christmas music around my house. My girls are huge Christmas music fans and if not kept in rein, might sing carols into July. I think Christmas needs to just cool its heels and allow Halloween and Thanksgiving their proper due, too, that’s all. So we don’t really do the Christmas cheer thing until after Thanksgiving.

Funnily enough, that’s when everyone else seems to start their holiday freak-out, too. So Black Friday has turned into a race to open, a race to sales, a race for the highest profit. It has become a race for the best thing, a competition to BE THE FIRST, THE BEST, THE WINNER, and this is true for consumers as well as the corporations feeding the frenzy with their earlier-and-earlier openings.

This Black Friday creep into Thanksgiving has put me in a sour mood. It has changed the traditions of Thanksgiving from it being a day to bask in our blessings to a day we race through our conversations and our meals, we skip the pie and coffee and find ourselves freezing our asses off outside a mall, plotting the self-indulgent takeover by way of ruthless consumerism while the “crazy” people sit inside watching the football game surrounded by the warmth of family and friends.

This has created such a contrast in meanings. Those twin days ushering in the holiday season have turned into the worst type of fraternal twin: the good and the evil. Why is it that one day can be about giving so much thanks, and the very next day be about the complete opposite? It feels as if we are all running a similar track of “bi-polarity,” as I call it. We switch gears as quickly as we flip a light switch.

In life, this makes me sad. In writing, I find it a pleasant challenge. How does one present contrast in a poem?

It can be done obviously, with opposite words. It can be structured like this example, a limerick my grandfather likes to recite:

I went to the show, tomorrow
Took a front seat, in the back.
I fell from the basement to the balcony,
And I broke the front of my back.

Even though the poem didn’t make much sense, it is still a good poem. It still had good rhythm and is still memorable. I love this about poetry – you can use any words, mash them together, carve them into something, and voila! You have something. I don’t think there’s really such a thing as a “bad” poem unless it isn’t cared about, and I think that as long as someone goes through the trouble to think it up and write it down, there’s some degree of care put into it.

That limerick is one example, and it isn’t subtle about the opposite words. In other contrast poems, the words themselves may not be the contrasting element of the piece. It may be in the title, which beckons the reader through a door where they find the other side isn’t what they expected. My fair ginger lover pointed out a great example of that to me today – a song with sad lyrics, written to a happy tune. “Any David Bowie song, really,” he said. Another example I came up with is a song that was popular a few years back, “Into the Ocean” by Blue October. A catchy melody, one that sticks to the short-term memory in that way that makes you hum the chorus for the rest of the day, but listen to the words. The guy is talking about committing (or attempting to commit) suicide. That’s not really something I would expect to want to turn up in the car on my way to work. Such a buzzkill, but open for other interpretations because of the tune. If you don’t listen to the words, it’s a really happy song. If you keep to the melody, or the “beat” of the poem, without absorbing the words too much, it can work this way with poetry as well. The contrast comes between what the reader expects the poem will be about, and what the poem is actually about.

A great example of this is a poem called “Flowers” by Dennis Roy Craig. He talks of not knowing the names of the flowers because of his upbringing; he grew up in a desolate concrete jungle where flowers did not grow. The vision we are given in the poem is a sad, dirty industrial one devoid of color and joy. When the speaker finally encounters flowers, the joy they bring him is so great he does not need to give it a name.

FLOWERSWritten by Dennis Roy Craig
I have never learnt the names of flowers.
From beginning, my world has been a place
Of pot-holed streets where thick, sluggish gutters race
In slow time, away from garbage heaps and sewers
Past blanched old houses around which cowers
Stagnant earth. There, scarce green thing grew to chase
The dull-grey squalor of sick dust; no trace
Of plant save few sparse weeds; just these, no flowers.
One day, they cleared a space and made a park
There in the city’s slums; and suddenly
Came stark glory like lighting in the dark,
While perfume and bright petals thundered slowly.
I learnt no names, but hue, shape and scent mark
My mind, even now, with symbols holy.

This poem is how I have viewed this kickoff-to-holiday-season weekend, in a way. First, a wonderful day of family, friends, humility and maybe a little bit of gluttony, with a day of selfish greed and utter consumerism, this gimmegimme mine-mine-mine attitude hot on its heels. Black Friday has become such a rude tradition that it has eroded the celebration and even the meaning of Thanksgiving.

This year, I had to work for a few hours, and it wasn’t bad. I was able to come home and chill out with my husband and my son, and we stayed inside and watched crap on the television and ate frozen food out of cardboard boxes for our harvest feast. It was a wonderful day. It gave me time to consider all that I am thankful for, and this year, I have one more thing to be thankful for: the opportunity to share my words with others. For that, thank you fine readers who check out my blog every Saturday evening.

And as always, I am thankful for poetry. For words, for the music behind them, and for the feelings and memories they evoke. I am thankful for poets who came before me, and thankful for the chance to become one of them.

Have a fantastic week, and remember to take a moment each day and remember what you’re thankful for!

xoxo :)

Our Favorite Words - Mad Lib Style!

Now THIS is flippin' cool. THIS is my newest obsession, my new Candy Crush. I am so excited to have discovered this, and I am SUPER stoked to share this with you. If it isn't something that is already taking the world by storm, then it should be. Hey word junkies and language geeks out there: get a kick out of the MOST EPIC NEW THING IN POETRY:

*drumroll please!*

AUTOCORRECT POETRY.

I'm sure you're all familiar with AutoCorrect. Even those who are still carrying around those dinosaur flip phones, or - gasp! - a candy bar phone, you'll know what AutoCorrect does. It turns completely innocent text messages into great fodder for conversation later, inside jokes, and now, amazing works of writing.

What I like about the concept of AutoCorrect poetry is that it has no form, it has no style. It is freewriting in our most modern form. It is mobile poetry. There is no longer any excuse for not having the time to write poetry. If you can text, you can create!

I had been mulling this over in my mind for a while now, and the other day I voiced my ideas to my fair ginger lover. We turned it into a bit of a game, to see who could come up with the better text, based on how hard we laughed at it. We spent the next half hour in a sort of texting date, writing hilarious and completely nonsensical things to each other and giggling like children. We probably looked so stupid, sitting there on our phones, snorting into our sleeves with laughter.

I noticed while doing this that my AutoCorrect sometimes repeated words I had already used, like it was on a loop of words in a bank. Where did these words come from? From the person holding it, of course, which is me - and I realized that these aren't just funny words. These are my favorite words. These are the words I use most often because they are the ones that are most familiar to my tongue. The way they roll off and clamber about the Universe after jumping out of my brain - those are the ones I reach for most often.

What words do you reach for? What words are in your vernacular? How do you expand your vocabulary? I recently discovered this great Facebook app called "Word Porn" (excuse the title) and while I'm not one who really gets into the "sharing" of all those random Page pictures and cutesy sayings and whatnot, I find myself sharing a lot of these updates because these words are just... splendiferous.

In three days, I was introduced to, like, FIVE of my new favorite words. My first new favorite word was a word I wish I had known in fourth grade when we wrote and submitted orally a paper on what we wanted to be when we grew up. If you know me personally, then you know what my aspirations were back then. Innocent as they truly were, they were absolutely scandalous that day in my fourth grade classroom.

Keep reading. Maybe I'll tell you the story.

This is such a great word - a word to describe me perfectly. Not me as a complex, complete being, but the essential Me. The word is "quaintrelle." The definition is I take this one at face value - I realize that it is to mean the female counterpart to a dandy British male, and that is not as I mean it. But read the definition and interpret it for yourselves, and I think you will realize what I'm trying to say.
"A woman who emphasizes a life of passion expressed through personal style, leisurely pastimes, charm and cultivation of life's pleasures."

Another one I really enjoy is "heliopheliac." One who basks in sunshine, and is reluctant to leave it.

Another is scripturient - having a consuming passion to write. Oh, how that one fits me so well.

I love this one, this is probably one of my very favorite new words, "retrouvaille" which means rediscovery, the joy of finding a loved one after a long separation.

And balter. Because that is hilarious. It is pronounced like "falter" and it isn't far off. It means to WAVE YO HANDS IN THE AY-ER LIKE YOU JUST DON'T CAY-ER. It is the stuff of that thankfully lost video of my wedding night after the third? pub of the crawl... one very, very happy bride very much enjoying her new status as Mrs. Fair Ginger Lover. "To dance artlessly without particular grace or skill, but usually with enjoyment." Just hearing the word makes me giggle.

Which brings me to the best part - the part of the evening where you learn how to write your very own AutoCorrect poems! Hope your seams are double stitched.

Also, be warned - I apparently have a sailor's vernacular because my phone allows my AutoCorrect to swear.

Fuck the bus stop!
She is super proud
of my birthday party.
And,
she would love Mondays.

I would absolutely love to do this as spoken word, as slam poetry. I think it would be hilarious. Just me and a spotlight, deadpanning for the audience. I want to make this happen! Here's another good one.

For example,
a little ridiculous,
and the grocery shopping cart system -
it's not connecting with his toes!
I don't want the baby giving them
to the store in the Middle East.

I noticed that a lot of my little poems ended up being about the baby. My little Muse. He is his father's son in so many ways. Love that little bundle of joy from the ends of his wispy blonde hair to the tips of his tiny little toes, but sometimes, I think my AutoCorrect captures my worst 3 AM moments. For example:

Give me a good day sweetie.
Try to get rid of them,
in their fucking frustration,
by throwing out the baby.
(wow, I must have been really, um, tired.)

My phone is very Smart. It keeps up with current events. For the most part. It's a little behind, but I still give it credit for knowing that Carlos is always to be associated with Danger.

Carlos Danger is not connecting
a little more sweetie Love
to the midnight showing.
We need an experienced programmer
who has been CRAZY
about my teeth.

This is one from my husband's AutoCorrect - and I took it personally, it was that sweet.

Thus the baby happy,
and the fantastic four of us
to come home to

and snuggle - with you,
though I love you more

than any Hostess cake.

Aww.

Try it. Let's start a new thing. Send an AutoCorrect Poem (ACP) text or post to someone and see how they react! When you get the inevitable "WTF?" explain the concept, and enjoy the hilarity.

Comment or submit your own AutoCorrect poem, thanks SO VERY MUCH for coming back to read this week, and please share and pin and +1 the crap out of The Saturday Evening Poet! I want my words to reach every furthest corner. I appreciate every like and share and click and skim. I thank you so very, very much and hope you have a great week.

xoxo :)

Oh, fine. Because you were kind enough to read to the end, I'll tell you what happened in fourth grade.

I didn't have such a refined vocabulary back then. (Where were you, Word Porn?) We were given an assignment to write a paper on what we wanted to be when we grew up. I didn't know the word "choreographer." I was also not familiar with the term "interpretive dancer." All I knew is that out there somewhere, according to my Highlights for Children magazine, there were people who got paid to make up funky dances and teach them to people. I wanted to get paid for getting my groove on! I tried to think of the most technical term I could come up with for "funky" because that probably wasn't anywhere near a list of occupations. I chose the most elegant sounding word, "exotic."

Thus, my paper, which was presented via speech to the class, which was in full attendance that day, including the boy I had a crush on who sat in the front row right in front of where I was standing, became a speech on how I wanted to grow up to become an exotic dancer.

You're welcome, and I'm very sorry if you were drinking anything. :)

Polaroid Poetry

It feels like the weeks are flying by! I'm convinced that as we get older, time passes faster. Years that once crawled by are now speeding past me like a blurry bullet of days I get through only to forget them. My "new" baby is almost 9 months now, and my girls will be on Christmas break in a month, and then on to the second half of the school year. Winter is almost here - it gets closer every day - and the holidays are rushing up to this last-second shopper (last-second everything, honestly) like the guy who WANTS THE BALL. Before I know it, I'm going to be back to doing it all in 2014.

For the past seven weeks (and for another month) I've had a crazy busy schedule. Three classes, work five days a week, three kids, a fair ginger lover, at least five submissions to literary magazines and I've recently launched a full-on effort to find freelance work to gain employable writing experience. I'm ready to share my words and ready to bring my editing skills to the right people, for the right price, of course. At this point, my price is experience, so get your edits and proofreads in now while I'm still broke and humble!

I kid. I'm just... I'm ready to be part of something bigger.

Right now, it's a little ridiculous. But I'm loving it, thriving in the chaos and satisfaction of taking on so much ambition. It's the most productive environment I could be in. Starting in January, I'll be back to online classes (the same ones I swear I'll never take again, every term) so I'll have more time to work, more time to rake in that cabbage. Cabbage. God, I love fun words! My goal, however, is not to have to run for it, so much, but to make more of an effort to put my name "out there" and let the cabbage float to me.

However, I know that is completely unreliable and I don't plan on depending upon pretty words to pay the rent, so I'll be turning more tables, too, I'm sure.

My point, as long as it has taken me to get to it, is that life is crazy and it's flying by. It doesn't wait for you, and it doesn't allow you to take the scenic route unless you make the effort to slow down and look for yourself. Don't let it slip through your fingers. Don't lose the moments through the blur of the passing weeks. Stop and smell the roses, and write a poem about it!

I like to think of poems, especially the short and sweet ones I like to write, as Polaroids of our lives. They're quick snapshots of what we felt in those moments. I can remember things I wanted to remember, but unless I write them down, I don't remember what those things I wanted to remember were, only that I wanted to remember them.

I've recently found a poet who captures moments like this so perfectly. I discovered her on Pinterest, actually, but she's got a Facebook page that's gaining more "likes" every day. She hails from Sydney and is currently hanging out in Singapore, promoting her amazing book Love and Misadventure. Her name is Lang Leav, and what I love about her work is the style in which she writes. Our styles are very similar, and she writes about what she knows, the most exquisite feelings us normal people feel without having words to put to them. She puts her feelings, those moments shared between lovers, into such simple terms that not only can we understand what she's trying to convey, but we can feel almost like we're there, like we're the lover, or we're the loved one, and for me, at least, it feels like she's taken the words right out of my soul and put them on paper. I wish I had found those words in high school, rather than have the hassle of the last nine years and countless adversities to get through before finding the happiness I have today! She is the cure for what I recently found out was actually a word - that difficulty or inability to describe emotions as we feel them - alexithymia. What I love most about Leav's poetry is that she has a way of picking out the smallest moments and blowing them up so we can see the beauty in them. She forces us to slow down and enjoy the moment in the minute, the hour, the experience. Her voice speaks the volumes that still sit on the shelves in my heart. I admire her words and I'd like to share a few of my favorite examples with you.

Xs and Os

Love is a game
Of tic-tac-toe,
Constantly waiting, 
For the next X or O.


LOVE LETTERS

Every letter
   That she types,
    Every keystroke
    That she strikes
To spell your name
   again and again
   is all she ever 
   wants to write.


CLOSURE

Like time suspended,
   A wound unmended
   You and I.

We had no ending,
   Said no goodbye.

For all my life,
   I'll wonder why.


Tell me, ladies... tell me that you didn't just swallow a lump in your throat as you got angry for a second at the bitch who just stole your words. Was that just me? When I first started reading Lang Leav's poetry, I was almost furious. I felt like Billy Crystal in Throw Momma From the Train in the scene where Anne Ramsay just figured out the word Billy Crystal's character had been fumbling for through the entire film. I wanted to find this lovely Aussie Asian woman and steal my words back. As I read further, I just fell further and further in love with what she wrote about - because she works the same way I do. She found her Muse and celebrates him with every syllable. While the subject of her poetry is usually the same, she writes it in such a way that makes each piece new, and makes us read it in a way we hadn't thought to think of it before. Love is complex enough as it is - and I thank Lang Leav for finding the words to unravel the confusion and put it in simple terms for us.

Thank you so much for coming back this week. Please enjoy each and every moment of the next week until we meet again. xoxo :)



Leav, L. (2013). Love and misadventure. Andrews McMeel Publishing. Kansas City, Missouri. 

Silver, S. (1987). Throw momma from the train. Orion Pictures Corporation. Los Angeles, California. 

Making a List, Checking it Twice

So we've barely passed Halloween and we're already being inundated with sleigh bells ringing and carolers singing. It seems like the holidays come a little bit sooner every year. One big part of the holiday season, for me, at least, is the list making. Oh, how many notebooks I could go through between November and January, planning parties and cookies and presents and making Christmas lists with my kids... lists are one of my favorite parts of the season because, well, because I'm more than a little OCD and it helps me to keep track of an otherwise clusterf$^%*ed couple of weeks.

But how does this relate to poetry? Well, it could be argued, I suppose, that you could turn any list into a poem, not that there's anything especially poetic about eggs, milk, cheese, but hey, if you can think it, do it!

"Don't dream it - be it!" (Rocky Horror Picture Show)

Had to throw it in there - I highly enjoyed my birthday experience the week before last.

But it can be argued that any good poem can start with a list. Make a list of your favorite things. Line them up and watch them expand on the paper. Instead of saying so much with so little, watch how much those little things say and let the words come out between the things that aren't said.

There's no special name for it, like sonnet, or pantoum. They are simply called "list poems" and the beauty is in the simplicity. 

Eggs, milk, cheese.

Crack, pour, grate.

Splash, melt, sizzle

Chew, taste, enjoy.

Breakfast.

Okay, well, I guess we could do something with eggs, milk, and cheese, so my rude assumption that nothing could be done with a grocery list is now out the window. But let's do better than that.

There are two ways I like to write list poems. The first is through repetition. The second is through fact-gathering to come to a conclusion.

Let's try this on repeat. I first tried my hand at list poems in 2008 in Professor Fanning's class at CMU. Forgive me, I learned some great techniques and love referring to things I learned in that class. He used an example called "My Car" by Raymond Carver. This is SUCH a great writing prompt, and so simple. I do hope you'll use it in your own writing endeavors.

I would like to share with you today, my response to this type of list poem. I repeated the phrase "The dog who" to introduce to you one of my best, best friends in the entire Universe who has since gone over the Rainbow Bridge. Her name was KayCee Lou.

ODE TO KAYCEE LOU

The dog who was a diva.

The dog whose ears were crimped.

The dog who ate pizza crusts.

The dog who never barked.

The dog who greeted visitors.

The dog who was liberal with kisses.

The dog who was a surprise.

The dog who chewed her paws.

The dog who rolled in the grass.

The dog who waited for the school bus.

The dog whose tail was immense.

The dog who teethed on rocks.

The dog who never bit.

The dog who watched the fish tank.

The dog who didn't sit pretty -

The dog who sat beautiful.

The dog who ate off a fork.

The dog who loved the bathtub.

The dog who demolished snowballs.

The dog who got high with me.

The dog who watched soap operas on sick days.

The dog who kept my secrets.

The dog who ate Oreos after the breakup.

The dog who finished off daiquiris.

The dog who trailed mud through the kitchen.

The dog whose nose was never rubbed in it.

The dog who took her time.

The dog who never challenged my opinion.

The dog who protected me.

The dog who birthed thirty one.

The dog who mothered twenty eight.

The dog who comforted me through contractions.

The dog who babysat and let me nap.

The dog whose hair matched mine.

The dog whose collar was purple.

The dog who never needed a leash.

The dog who knew her place.

The dog whose place was at my side.

The dog who flopped.

The dog who was "voluptuous."

The dog the vet called fat.

The dog who peed on the vet.

The dog who missed me.

The dog who slept at my feet.

The dog who kept me warm.

The dog who never rolled her eyes.

The dog whose fur choked the vacuum.

The dog whose nose turned white.

The dog who made the house a home.

The dog who answered to Mama, Queenie, Lady and Baby.

The dog who hated my ex.

The dog who knew best.

The dog who listened to NIRVANA.

The dog with good taste.

The dog who never judged.

The dog whose fur was golden.

The dog whose heart was golden.

The dog who loved me.

The dog I loved.

In repetition, the poem stays together. "The dog who" acts as glue while the various line endings give you all sorts of images about what sort of dog she was. The best part is that this can be done with anything, and anyone of any age could come up with a great list poem.

The next kind of list poem I like to write is by gathering information, like objects, characteristics or specific memories. I think specificity makes this kind of poem easier to interpret, but that's just me.

I wrote a poem about things that reminded me of my mother. Some were tangible objects, some were specific memories of things she would do, little quirks and habits. I tried to put pieces of her life together not unlike a mosaic of words.

Yes, a mosaic. That's why I like this type of poem. 

THINGS THAT REMIND ME OF MY MOTHER 

(Okay, so the title is a bit obvious, but simplicity is key here.) 

Levi jeans with ankles tapered, 

Mary Jane and vanilla perfume,

Tacky signs with cutesy sayings,

Forgetting the light when leaving a room.

Braided rugs and potpourri, 

Frogs and Mickey Mouse,

Camouflage and fridge magnets,

Too much furniture in the house.

Michigan State and soap operas,

Leather jackets, Doritos,

Tan legs, wine coolers and lace curtains,

And berry-colored toes.

Big pink and white Christmas trees,

and Pepsi in a can,

Harley Davidson motorcycles,

and her Harley Davidson man.

Wings' McCarty and dog fur,

Smeared mascara on her face,

Sports bras and short overalls,

Virginia, that sandy-beach place.

Marlboro Red 100's in a box,

Afghans on the couch,

Roses in the backyard,

Curling hair and saying, "ouch!"

Bud bikinis, brown flip flops,

Cowboy hats to give her shade,

Shot glasses and beer mirrors,

Drinking Jack when bills weren't paid.

Fear of needles, fear of heights,

One snaggled tooth on top,

Long nights of waiting tables,

Morning hair much like a mop.

Clark bars and beef jerky,

Budweiser in longneck,

My mother, my best friend, my confidant,

My lovely, chaotic wreck.

For anyone who may be concerned about her reaction to this poem, she thought it was spot on. I call's 'em as I see's 'em and I get that from my Mama.

So what have we learned today, boys and girls? LISTS ARE GOOD. LISTS ARE YOUR FRIENDS. YOU WANT TO MAKE LISTS. YOU WANT TO MAKE LISTS OF LISTS. 

Okay, OCD. Chill out, now. It's only November.

Perhaps by December I'll have enough lists made that I can begin to start knocking things off the lists.

Maybe you can look around this holiday season that continues to do the "Christmas Creep" and consider the beauty in it all. Try to look past the retail veneer and past the commercialism that has taken over, and maybe during this time you can make a list of your blessings. Write a poem about it. 

xoxo :)

Flower Power

You're still here? Thanks so much! I appreciate every reader, every click, every mosey-on-over that leads you to my page. I really, really do.

So, this whole time, I've been raving about the power of poetry and the ability to say so much with so little. Well, everything I've said about keeping it simple, stupid, you should throw out the window right now.

Well, go on. Throw it out. You can go pick it up later, but for now, we're going to talk about how less is more, but more is also more. Sometimes, more is so much more than just plain old some. Are you still with me? "Less is more" always worked for Coco Chanel, but honey, I'm a poet in ripped jeans and horizontal stripes, okay? I'm not here to make a fashion statement. I'm here to make a statement in as many words as I damn well please.

I'm a lover of words. Short ones, long ones, silly ones, technical ones, cuss ones, flowery ones... oh, how I love how flowery figurative speech can be. It is both my greatest strength and most damning downfall as a writer. I can be professional when I want to be, but for the most part, the more flower, the more power I can punch into what I'm trying to say.

For example, here is a perfectly good poem:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue.

Sugar is sweet, 

and so are you.

It is simple, and memorable in its simplicity, I suppose. It's the original love poem we are first taught back in Kindergarten. Simple - it gets the point across. "I like you." It's the equivalent of those store-bought Valentines we all gave out to our classmates without prejudice in elementary school. Unless you were one of those cruel kids who only gave Valentines out to your friends, in which case, you Sir, are a jerk.

It doesn't convey emotion, though. That's the sad part about this happy little ditty - it doesn't make me feel special enough to give a crap about this poem.

Let's make it pretty. Add some glitter and some jazz and some sprinkles, add imagery and coloring. There's red, there's blue, there's the black and white of the thinking happening here. But there's no sparkle, no pizzazz. I almost wrote "pizzas," but that wouldn't make any sense. So let's use it!

Roses are red, in a way that pizza is red,

red sauce, smothering the dough.

Mottled with veggies, none of them blue.

Blue like the violets,

Or the way I feel without you.

We can keep going, but this doesn't make much sense. However, poetry isn't necessarily supposed to make sense. Sometimes it's just for fun, and those of you who have read Lewis Carroll or Dr. Seuss can understand that. So much nonsense and what for? Pure entertainment. Poetry is not a job; that's why we don't have professional poets. If poetry were a profession, it would be ruined. 

But look at my revised version of your go-to Valentine verse. It's nothing like anything you've read in a Hallmark card. You've never heard anything like it and seeing as we went from roses to pizza to being desolate without our lover, you're probably not apt to read anything similar anytime soon. Think about this, though: when reading the original, did your face move at all? Did you raise an eyebrow, turn up the corners of your lip in a smile, blow extra air out your nose in that distracted half-assed appreciation of mirth we all display unknowingly while scrolling through I Can Haz Cheezburger photos? You know the one I'm talking about - where your brain says, "This is funny, and I'm laughing!" but your nose just says, "pff," and moves on to the next meme. (Someone pointed that out to me once, and it's one of those things that CANNOT BE UNSEEN.) Chances are, you did not. You did not have a reaction to the former poem because it doesn't say anything you haven't heard before, and even if it does spew recycled sentiment at you, it doesn't say it in a way that makes us think about it differently. What does that piece offer to make it stand out from any other greeting card copy?

Now look back at the latter poem. It has been extended into more ideas. It has elaborated on just what kind of red those roses are. It has gone into detail what the redness looked like, and what the speaker feels about the color blue, and about the subject. We've added a simile! A smile with an extra i!

Quick sidebar: I love similes and metaphors. This is what I just decided about similes, and I'd like to share it with you. 

Simile = a smile with an extra "i." The extra "i" (eye) represents the new perspective the simile introduces. 

"The girls giggled loudly." That's nice.

"The girls giggled loudly, like a troop of Brownies."

I used a s i m i l e and it made me s m i l e, because of the new i (eye) I read it with. Now, the girls didn't just giggle loudly, they giggled in a way I can imagine because I can see, in my mind, a troop of Brownies giggling and I can imagine how loud that could be.

If you're writing poetry just for the sake of getting it on paper, then you're not writing it with a purpose. You're writing a pretty journal, and that's okay. It's for you. If you're writing for someone else, if you're writing to really convey a message, or if you have a specific target audience, such as the apple of your eye, then you might want to put more of yourself into your writing than the bare bones basic.

I'm not a John Mayer fan, but his song about saying what you need to say, well, it's spot-on. If your word is as powerful inside as you think it is, then you have the ability to pull it out and make a statement on paper. Don't keep it inside. If it needs to come out, do it justice and say it in the best way possible. If you've got a lot of love to give, let it all out and watch as it all comes back tenfold. That's how love works - and that's exactly how I feel about good poetry. Put your best words into the Universe and bask in the beautiful words that come back around.

I'm not going to tell you to have a nice evening. Go have a wonderful evening filled with laughter, love, and learned lessons. 

See? You might hear your checkout girl tell you to have a nice day, and forget she said so before you walk out the door, but if she were to tell you to have a wonderful day of soaking in the beauty of the world, you're going to remember that she said that to you, aren't you?

Seriously, go have a wonderful evening. Thanks for reading.

xoxo :)