Growth as a Poet Reflection

Mia Macon

For me writing poetry with purpose comes during the times I focus on my own emotions and my own
reality and find a way to warp my ever winding words into an art piece of a sort. I don’t truly think that
the perspective of my poem changed much in the process, other than making that perspective clearer
by refining my descriptions and wording. The biggest change I noticed from my first to final draft was
very mainly the length of my poem. My first draft started with barely ¾ of a page but ended with almost
2 entire pages full of meaning. Once I began adding onto my poem through my intended message, it was
incredibly difficult to stop my writing. Letting my thoughts flow onto the paper could have been an
endless endevor with countless meanings and segways, so finding a place to end my thoughts in
relevance to my message was one of the more difficult steps. From ending my poem within the first
week or so, I dont honestly believe I made too much change other than improving my wording and
adding more details to improve my overall poem. I know for many during this project, they came in with
the mentality of disliking poetry and finding it hard to understand and work with, however I must say
that I have always found comfort in poetry and words specifically. Maybe it is because of my upbringing
however I have always found the depth within hidden meanings and metaphors to speak more
thoroughly to the way my own brain works and the way my own emotions materialize. Sometimes
speaking with a clear purpose is far more difficult than using a metaphor that could describe 100 ways I
am feeling. I think going through this project in a more structured manner was the shift for me even
though it didn’t much alter my perspective. Truly revising and polishing my raw words isnt something I
do very often, so having that practice was most definitely a change that was beneficial to the way my
thoughts move in the first place. I also truly appreciated the message of my poem when I made those
revisions to better emphasize the importance of my words and the beauty behind them.

When even writing this reflection I will say it's a bit difficult for me to explain the specifics behind how I
altered my poem other than brainstorming (or in some cases using a thesaurus) more intricate words. In
a way this is only because I could most likely write you 20 poems with ease before I could give you a 3
page scientific document with MLA citations and statistics backing my hypothesis up. Turning my own
reality into art is something I’ve focused on doing since a very young age and it is quite honestly a skill I
tune on a daily basis. The changes I made to my poem did not focus entirely on the change of my
mindset but the growth of my vocabulary itself and therefore I don’t believe I could convey much mind
blowing improvement with the addition and change of a few words. Now with this being said I would say
that you could view those miniscule changes as an improvement to the overall interpretation and
intricacy of the poem itself. So yes maybe changing the words “cold, and deep, and wet” to “fridgid, and
flooded, and bottomless” has the potential to speak towards your revisions as a person and the way
your mind grows with every refinement but truly my poem spoke to the way I have perceived myself
and my world, and just even getting those words out of my head and onto paper was the biggest
emotional and intelectual improvement for me.
In regards to those who read my poem- I do think the way we phrase ourselves affects the way the
reader perceives our message and by making those tiny little tweaks the overall imagery and message
can come across in a far more meaningful way. I found when writing my own poem it was very personal
to myself, and if my intent was to make a strongly relatable poem I would have made a far simpler,
much shorter poem. Words with many meanings but a clear message. Simplicity can be one of the most
intricate things that allows you to connect to others, however that was not my intention when creating
my own poem. Looking at my first draft to my final draft you might not really notice any changes of
significance other than the crazy large amount I added in only the second day and the small grammar
adjustments here and there, but in being able to process my original thoughts I think it became more
apparent– the hidden meanings behind those thoughts and the transparency of how those thoughts
were conveyed to others as well.

All in all I suppose my growth as a poet had far more to do with my growth as a person and the way I
organized my messy thoughts into deeper and stronger words than the simpler revisions I made of only
my work. My poem might not have followed a structure or a rulebook, however it did follow my own
personal thoughts and the way those thoughts relate to those around me. Not every person who may
come across and read my poem will at all understand what was going through my mind, however my
growth as a poet- I would hope- speaks more to my ability to allow them to connect their own thoughts
and experiences to my words as opposed to how my words speak to only my own personal meaning. In
the future I believe that from this process I could take away the lesson that by organizing and refining
my words, I can better decipher and organize my thoughts. It is far more important to grow not only
through the beginning and end of it all, but through the revision process between, because truly it might
make more sense to those around you, but most importantly yourself.

(I know this reflection doesn’t entirely follow the given prompts, however I dont think I could have
written four pages about my subjective little revisions, so I hope this will do :) )