Risky Business

Today, my poetry professor emailed me to tell me I'm too hard on myself and that I am a gifted writer. He thinks that I am always looking for the right answer, which can't exist in poetry. I think that what he said was true, but I would include that what I really want is to know that I am on the right track. I want to know that I'm saying something meaningful to someone other than me. I think I'm starting to need validation as a writer.
It's too late for me to switch my major, but I want to know that what I'm writing isn't complete bullshit. Poetry is my downfall, and unexpectedly my poetry classes are my favorite this quarter. I would still consider myself a fiction writer, but I think I'm learning more from this class than any other writing class so far.
So here it goes, I'm going to post a draft of a poem that I am working on. You can hate it, love it, or tell me it needs work. I'm up for anything. My professor also told me that I take criticism well, I am willing to rewrite and that I am an open, risk taking person in my writing.
So here's another risk, posting my own poem online.

Outside

In one moment our friendship was lost

Like the dog on the sign taped to that streetlight

My boyfriend is drunkenly petting a stray cat on the lawn

Your boyfriend is next to me saying you didn’t mean it

You snarled and snapped and stomped back into the house

the house where everyone else drinks and laughs

The house where I should be instead on this concrete curb,

My hands cupping my face
and your boyfriend, not mine

Attempting to bring me inside

Your boyfriend laughs when I tell him there’s nothing left to fix

"Tears stream down your face"

I don't believe that anyone goes to class ever expecting to cry. Let alone have the whole class break out into tears. Men and women sobbing, leaving the room, wiping their cheeks, hiding in their hands. That's not something you expect from a class.

But today, that's what happened in my honors creative writing class.

My professor, the week before this class told us to write down what we want to say in our poetry. We all wrote things like "the truth", "experience", and all that other cliche stuff you say to not say what you actually want to say. He made us get more specific, and I wrote down about a moment in my life that I think of every once and a while that haunts me. He told us to write about those things in our poems due the next week.

Everyone's poems were decent, and they didn't specifically acknowledge anything in the author's life. Even mine, though a story (because I'm a fiction writer) didn't acknowledge my true feelings about the subject of the poem. But my professor asked everyone to talk about what their poem was really about. Each member of my small class talked about personal issues in their lives and many cried.

I think a lot of the students were turned off by the class, now feeling hesitant to write about things so personal, but for me it only made my love of writing grow stronger. I felt connected the kids in the class, the kids that I still don't remember all the names of. I truly believe crying about these poems is going to turn them into better and more meaningful poems.

Guess I will find out next week!

Inspire me.

I believe I've mentioned in a previous post, but I'll mention again that I need inspiration to write. I'm not the kind of writer who just writes randomly for hours. I like to wait until I have something I want to write about.
That flaw or whatever it may be considered has been worrying me for this upcoming quarter. I'm taking three workshop classes, so I'm going to need a lot of inspiration.
Fortunately, I already found some. It was simple, actually. I don't want to post all about my short story here, but I want to share my love of waiting for inspiration.
Waiting makes me feel unburdened by my writing, and the words flow out. I think my characters sound more real, and I think my story is going to be funny. And I'm not great at funny.
Hopefully, I keep getting inspired. Especially for my poetry workshops. Poetry writing is my greatest flaw in being a writer. I just don't have poetry in my poetry. Not to make myself sound amazing but I feel I often have poetry in my fiction, but not in actual poems.