Mid Research Review by Grace Espinoza
There is rhythm in everything we do. Rhythm and patterns shape the way that one goes about their daily life: poetry is the rhythm of the world. Poetry takes the experiences, places, and people and puts them in an entirely different light. Poetry is what can lead you to cope with things one never imagined, creates a new insight on the world, and puts emotions into words one never even knew they had. To be able to express oneself through poetry by developing their writing skills is the ultimate goal. Throughout this paper I will cover what I have learned so far on poetry, explain how all of the research pieces together, and lastly cover what I still need to do to get a full grasp on poetry.
Poetry is a part of everything: a first kiss, a sunset, or loss of a loved one. It is a broad topic because there are many different types from limericks to acrostic to free verse. The broadness of just poetry caused me to make my topic about developing one’s poetry writing skills and what importance lies in that. In the television episode I watched, I learned how doctors used Alzheimer’s patients to better their memories through writing poetry because they discovered emotions and things once forgotten. In addition to it helping Alzheimer’s patients, it also helped patients and family cope with disease, death, and the unknown. Throughout my nonfiction book, it covers how to encounter poetry and discover metaphors that are hidden within the text. It expresses how changing the shape of your poem, can affect how the reader reads it. It also covers how you can use dialogue throughout ones poetry to keep the reader involved. Through the middle of the book, you learn about how to use breaks, to change the entire style of your poetry by affecting the rhythm. As well as changing one’s breaks, it gave many suggestions of to how rhythm can be created. It also covers how to develop your “ear for poetry” and how reading poems in different ways can cause different perceptions entirely. In the final part of this book it covers how to use things such as a central image or a main idea to hold ones reader’s attention. Through my articles, it expressed how with poetry our history never dies. It is forever engraved. It also discussed how editing your poetry is essential for bettering it, starting with edits from oneself and then passing it onto others.
There is a common thread between almost everything in life. Even in opposites can one find a common link. The world that we live in is one of interconnectedness. For this research, each research avenue used led to the same idea of needing to edit poems to gain better writing skills. Whether it was to edit one’s own writing, to let someone else edit it, or to edit another person’s poetry entirely one benefits. Editing puts poetry into a different light causing one to be able to write in different ways, develop stronger images, and broaden one’s word choice. From using it for cancer patients and their families, to an article based off events that were hard to cope with until they wrote, and to the book which covered self-expression showed another large connecting theme throughout all of the research was how poetry helps us cope with day to day life and the things that catch us off guard.
Poetry has an endless amount of things within it to connect all of us through the human experience. Although a lot of research has already been gathered I still need to research more on the history of poetry and how it has developed over time. I will look at a few different famous writers to see what is about them that made them so successful and the techniques they use throughout their writing. After learning techniques I will use them to write my own poetry to show the skill I’ve gotten one step closer to mastering. For viewing authors writing styles I will interview an author I greatly admire and use the techniques he shares with me; for the history I will show the development in a painted mural. To get a larger grasp on all the things I’ve researched in this project,I will get the point of view of others as well as multiple sources.
Throughout this paper, I covered what I have learned so far on poetry, explained how all of the research pieces together, and lastly covered what I still need to do to get a full grasp on poetry. To be able to express oneself properly and articulate what one wants through words is the ultimate form of expression. To know how to use ones words concisely does more than one could imagine: saves one from trouble, immortalizes a memory, or puts to rest a heartache. We are always searching for the right words to say and they are generally just on the tips of our tongues. Poetry is the words lingering within waiting to be freed. To become a better writer the first step is to pick up a pencil and just write what comes to mind, the time is now.