I’ve been writing now for many years. Almost everything has been prose, short story and novel-length fiction, or non-fiction mixed about 75/25. During the past six months, members of my writing group have suggested that I try my hand at poetry and flash fiction. My background in poetry is less than non-existent. Prior to this year, my most recent poetic attempt was in eighth grade, Ms. Hargrave’s class. A flaming disaster!! So, I started working on some flash pieces. Writing stories with less than 2,000 words is a challenge at best. Every word must perform multiple duties. Dialogue must be TIGHT. The character(s) must be clear and interesting from the first word. Settings must blend easily with the action.

My first attempts were somewhat successful, but it was a struggle to cut the word count and maintain a compelling story. My writing suffered from wordy and compound sentences, setting info dumps, and extraneous dialogue. A friend pushed harder for me to try poetry. After a lot of soul searching and research to brush up on exactly what poetry is, I sat down and cranked out two pieces. At first, my embarrassment kept me from sharing them with my group. I thought they were cheesy, and one of them might trigger some sensitive people. But I submitted them for critique anyway. Surprisingly to me, the feedback was mostly positive. After a bit of editing, I read both poems at an open mic night during the Lakefly Writer’s Conference. Again, the response was positive. Enough so that I will be working on additional pieces in the future.

What writing poetry taught me was that every single word in a poem must perform two or more functions. In addition, my other writing (especially first drafts) has become tighter. Word choice has become an interesting game, forcing me to improve my vocabulary. I no longer dread the idea of writing a poem. It remains an option and a useful tool for this infant poet. Over the next few weeks, I will share a few of my recent works.