How did you first engage with poetry?
It was the spontaneous overflow of powerful teenage feelings recollected in suburbia. In high school, I remember being very keen to read the Romantics. I had no idea what to expect, but I loved the name and these poets turned out to be as exciting as I expected with their critiques of consumerism (Wordsworth’s “The World is too much with us, getting and spending we lay waste our power”), philosophy (light) in Keats’ “Heard melodies are sweet, those unheard sweeter,” straight up ecstasy in most of Shelley, the renewing power of nature, and a host of other themes. If we compare the music videos from the Romantics (that 80s band), I would say that poetry from two hundred years ago stands up better than music from thirty some odd years ago. I mean that’s the beauty of poetry and working with language, it’s not as subject to the vicissitudes of fashion as other art forms. (Apologies for the strawman argument.)
The teen-angst poems that I wrote were love poems that were basic sentences with some missing articles and prepositions. After I read ee cummings through the summer between Grade 11 and 12, I played with spacing on the page. In Grade 12, I took a Creative Writing class from an wonderfully supportive teacher, Mr. Chudnovsky. (factoid: Chudnovsky’s son grew up with Seth Rogen who named the villain in the latest remake of Green Hornet... Chudnovsky!) I wrote fiction and poetry in his class, but after sending a story to Event Magazine and getting a rejection, I folded. I’m still working on developing a thicker skin for rejections and criticism.
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