Despite getting ready for the AP Lit exam, he truly believed that learning how to write would also help you learn how to read and critically analyze literature. Therefore we wrote poetry all year long. The best poems would enter our class’s publication Stained Glass and be immortalized there. (I ended up becoming the co-editor for Stained Glass and like Erika Meitner and other poets, I followed a similar method of organizing the collection. My best friend [the other co-editor] and I laid out all of the poems on the floor and moved them all around. We repeated this countless times when Mr. Trosey explained there were too many dead grandparent poems in a row.)

I can’t remember our first writing prompt but I think it was related to Maxfield Parrish paintings. We were reading The Great Gatsby at the time and since Parrish was an active painter around that time period, it was fitting His paintings were dreamy, soft, and impossible; Trosey explained it was sort of like an extension of Gatsby’s dreams. He had a slew of large prints and we chose our individual picture and then sat down and wrote. We continued writing poetry this way with other artists too (Monet for example) but sometimes we had to bring in a special object or a photograph.

There was the infamous prompt we all waited for at the end of the year–the candle poem. Our class took a trip to the biology classroom down the hall and we sat down at our tables while he glided around the room handing us candles. From there he lit the one candle and we had to pass the flame on to each classmate. Our job was to sit there in the darkened room, stare at the candle, and write a poem about love. It didn’t have to be a romantic love poem but after 30 minute or so, we extinguished our flame and we were able to keep the candle as a memento. Although it may not be technically ekphrastic, it was still an iconic moment of my high school career. My upperclassmen friends always talked about the candle poem. It was as much of a rite of passage as getting the flour sack baby in health class (which my health teacher didn’t do my year…so disappointing).

Although some people in my class complained about the class, many of us reveled in it. If I dabbled in poetry at all, it was solely based off of my feelings but never anyone else’s. Writing ekphrastically was a lesson in empathy.  I took on speakers who were different than me and I had to think like them. How could I render their imaginary thoughts and stay true to the style and content of piece of art I was working off of? Every now and then if I’m stuck for a poem idea, I go look at artwork somewhere–mostly online–and let that inspire me.

Mr. Trosey was romantic in the literary and emotional sense when it came to literature. He was like a John Keating who actually taught. I think that passion was really useful in instilling a love (or at least appreciation) of writing in each of us. For years in high school I was always hesitant about committing to the English major and after discussing it with him, he helped me realize that it was a really good fit for me. I loved reading, writing, revising (well maybe I don’t love revising), and discussing literature. He helped build my confidence and taught me some of the technical skills to pursue my love.

Who inspired me to get into poetry…hrmm…in general I think it […]

I love bands or artists that have a great lyrical quality to […]

Sometimes when I like to take a quick break from my work to destress I’ll go on Buzzfeed and take one of their inane quizzes. One time I took a quiz to see who I should marry and then it ended up being pizza. True love for bread and cheese aside, they’re fun distractions from college stress. And while I was looking at the quizzes, I found one labeled “Who Said It: A Poet or a Bot?” After getting most of the questions right, it led me to a website called “Bot or Not” (link here: http://botpoet.com/what-is-computer-poetry/).

On this website, you could play an endless of game of who said it. But I discovered that there’s a movement of programmers making computer-generated poetry. According to the site, “What we mean by ‘computer-generated poetry’ is: text, that is generated through an algorithm, which is executed by a digital, electronic computer, which is intended, by whoever it may be, to be read as poetry.” Although the definition is broad, it led me to think about the nature of poetry. Can the words really be strung together by an algorithm to create a poem? Do we only think the work is a poem because we have the preconceived notion that it is a poem? What is a poem? Are poets replaceable? *Cue existential crisis.*

In short, no, I don’t think poets are replaceable at all. Our choices are deliberate and thoughtful. But I think Bot or Not is still a really interesting experiment. Since I’ve been reading more poetry in the past few years, it was somewhat easy for me to tell which poem was a bot-poem and which one was written by a poet. But I wonder if the casual reader of poetry could tell.

So if you have time to spare, check out the link and see how well you do!

Nowadays I find […]

Originally when I visualized writing poetry, I used to think of it as a jigsaw puzzle. The individual parts help create the whole picture; but, I realized that jigsaw puzzles are rigid and constricting. You can’t move the pieces around (like moving around images or lines during revision). In addition, jigsaw puzzles are flat and it didn’t capture the life and three-dimensional quality that really good poetry creates; therefore, puzzles fail. And instead, I determined that poetry (at least for me) is Legos.

Legos encapsulate the fluidity and dynamism in poetry. They continuously change with our culture; the Lego creators come out with new packs reflecting a current trend and retiring older ones. With Legos you can build almost anything: towers, houses, Millennium Falcons, and more. The builder, the poet, takes these Legos—words—and can create anything of the aforementioned or something new. It’s pretty astounding what people can do with language; there are new words being added to the dictionary every year and our language is constantly developing which helps us build off of past traditions (sort of like the new Lego packs).

I feel like Legos work well to explain how poetry is created because Legos, like language, are flexible to work with. Say for instance you want to build a simple bridge. There are instructions with specific guidelines you can follow to make this bridge—this is like traditional poetry with set rhyme schemes and meter. But you have flexibility even within this form: if you want a blue and purple bridge instead of the suggested grey one, you can follow the guidelines but modernize it at the same time (like new formalism). The form is your guide but the content is new.

Or you can decide to throw aside the instructions and build a bride that doesn’t have a traditional form—maybe it twists, maybe it’s fragmented in areas, but you can still build a functional Lego bridge. The previous foundation of bridge building allowed you to try to break the form and try something different. This method is similar to free verse poetry. I could continue to relate Legos to different types of poetry but a reader can understand the general comparison.

What’s important about this comparison is that anyone can try to build a Lego bridge: all you need are the bricks. Your bridge may be rudimentary but it’s still fun to try or least gain an appreciation for these structures. And if you’re really passionate about Legos and have a good eye, you can hone your craft until you’re building the Golden Gate Bridge or the Notre Dame.