BigBadBear wrote:So. Question: which do you prefer in a poem? Meaning or language/imagery. Either or, please.
Neither. I'll throw away any poem if it only has meaning or if it only has language/imagery. I can have a poem that says, "Jesus lives!" over and over again and that certainly would be meaningful to some, but it is boring. On the other hand, I can describe my stapler in a pretty way, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. (Although, if I were to have to choose between them, I would probably pick imagery, simply because that's more interesting to read and ends up more meaningful to the right people. Still.)
It has to have a story--that is, it has to have a conflict that it delves into as fully as necessary for dramatic purposes. With this conflict, it'll be both vivid and meaningful (since your readers will connect with it being a conflict). Without it, you've failed in poetry. Even Neruda, with his poem "Oda a Tomates" had to use images of tomatoes killed, their blood running through the streets. Great imagery... but it was imagery that was simultaneously storytelling as well.
You said this in Kylan's blog a few weeks ago, and it was interesting, so I figured I'd ask you about it. It's mainly the second paragraph that I'm interested in. You say it has to have a story, or some kind of conflict. I was always taught that poetry is more of just a glimpse at something, not a whole story or even a conflict. That's where I was beginning to be intrigued. I'd like to know more about what a story or conflict is in a poem. And if you can, could you give me titles of a few poems like that? I really want to start getting better at poetry, because I just seem to be copying other people's formats and stuff, and it's lame. If I'm ever going to be a real, damn good poet, I want to have my own style.
-Jared
I decided to answer this question in the form of a writing tip, just because I think a lot of people are wondering what I meant. I mean, your confusion is perfectly apt. When you hear about poetry, the first thing that comes to your mind is typically not storytelling or conflict, unless, of course, you’re writing a narrative poem. For dramatic and lyric poetry, if you mention the idea of “conflict” in a poem, you’re typically laughed at. “I don’t write stories, I write poetry!”
While compiling the poetry database for TWS (which is now defunct) I got to read lots of really great poetry, and poem after poem, I noticed that each of the great poems had some sort of story or conflict attached to it. It wasn’t enough to describe for the poet to describe his feelings--he had to take you to his feelings, to his core using storytelling since what he had to express was so intangible that he couldn’t just tell you, “This is so.” He had to tell you the story involved for you to truly understand.
But more than that, a story allows you to understand beyond the author’s intentions and helps connect you, not just personally with the author but with the situation at hand. You have probably been in a situation where two people have told you conflicting stories. You know:
“Mom just doesn’t understand me, and I’ve been trying to make her accept me, but I’m not sure how to do it. I’ve gotten good grades, I’ve made the honor roll...”
And then the mom says privately to you, “Oh, well Johnny is a wonderful kid, but he just is so messy and I’m not sure what to do with him. I love him, but his pile of laundry juts keeps bigger!”
...that was something I made up. Obviously, I have a lot of unsorted laundry in my room.
But ordinary people lie to you, ordinary people hide the truth of what really has happened because we’re all sinners and we’re ashamed of our sins. Ask me a direct question about something I’ve done that I’ve done wrong and I’ll hide it from you or give you possible excuses or rant to you about the injustices of whatever. Ask me to tell you what happened and I’ll tell it all to you... and then you can make up your own mind. Robert Frost says it better:
Home Burial
by Robert Frost
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing toward her: "What is it you see
From up there always?—for I want to know."
She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,
And her face changed from terrified to dull.
He said to gain time: "What is it you see?"
Mounting until she cowered under him.
"I will find out now—you must tell me, dear."
She, in her place, refused him any help,
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.
She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see,
Blind creature; and awhile he didn't see.
But at last he murmured, "Oh," and again, "Oh."
"What is it—what?" she said.
"Just that I see."
"You don't," she challenged. "Tell me what it is."
"The wonder is I didn't see at once.
I never noticed it from here before.
I must be wonted to it—that's the reason.
The little graveyard where my people are!
So small the window frames the whole of it.
Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?
There are three stones of slate and one of marble,
Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight
On the sidehill. We haven't to mind those.
But I understand: it is not the stones,
But the child's mound——"
"Don't, don't, don't, don't," she cried.
She withdrew, shrinking from beneath his arm
That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;
And turned on him with such a daunting look,
He said twice over before he knew himself:
"Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?"
"Not you!—Oh, where's my hat? Oh, I don't need it!
I must get out of here. I must get air.—
I don't know rightly whether any man can."
"Amy! Don't go to someone else this time.
Listen to me. I won't come down the stairs."
He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.
"There's something I should like to ask you, dear."
"You don't know how to ask it."
"Help me, then."
Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.
"My words are nearly always an offense.
I don't know how to speak of anything
So as to please you. But I might be taught,
I should suppose. I can't say I see how.
A man must partly give up being a man
With womenfolk. We could have some arrangement
By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off
Anything special you're a-mind to name.
Though I don't like such things 'twixt those that love.
Two that don't love can't live together without them.
But two that do can't live together with them."
She moved the latch a little. "Don't—don't go.
Don't carry it to someone else this time.
Tell me about it if it's something human.
Let me into your grief. I'm not so much
Unlike other folks as your standing there
Apart would make me out. Give me my chance.
I do think, though, you overdo it a little.
What was it brought you up to think it the thing
To take your mother-loss of a first child
So inconsolably—in the face of love.
You'd think his memory might be satisfied——"
"There you go sneering now!"
"I'm not, I'm not!"
You make me angry. I'll come down to you.
God, what a woman! And it's come to this,
A man can't speak of his own child that's dead."
"You can't because you don't know how to speak.
If you had any feelings, you that dug
With your own hand—how could you?—his little grave;
I saw you from that very window there,
Making the gravel leap and leap in air,
Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly
And roll back down the mound beside the hole.
I thought, Who is that man? I didn't know you.
And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs
To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.
Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice
Out in the kitchen, and I don't know why,
But I went near to see with my own eyes.
You could sit there with the stains on your shoes
Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave
And talk about your everyday concerns.
You had stood the spade up against the wall
Outside there in the entry, for I saw it."
"I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.
I'm cursed. God, if I don't believe I'm cursed."
"I can repeat the very words you were saying:
‘Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.'
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlor?
You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
No, from the time when one is sick to death,
One is alone, and he dies more alone.
Friends make pretense of following to the grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are turned
And making the best of their way back to life
And living people, and things they understand.
But the world's evil. I won't have grief so
If I can change it. Oh, I won't, I won't!"
"
There, you have said it all and you feel better.
You won't go now. You're crying. Close the door.
The heart's gone out of it: why keep it up?
Amy! There's someone coming down the road!"
"You—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—
Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you——"
"If—you—do!" She was opening the door wider.
"Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.
I'll follow and bring you back by force. I will!—"
Yep. Wow. Normally, I don’t like Robert Frost, but when I read that poem in a poetry anthology, I was stunned.
Is the diction/imagery good? I would say, not really. It’s mostly a conversation and, as such, there are certain descriptive elements neglected in the poem. It doesn’t really have a bounce in either a pleasant or unpleasant way and it doesn’t really describe the scene that well. Plus, the words that the characters use are obviously meant to deceive each other, so that rules out that possible imagery. The imagery, the diction, the way it’s told, does not make it great.
Is the message clear? I would argue, no. The message isn’t clear since the characters are confused and tormented. This is no, “The Road Not Taken” where it’s fairly obvious that you should take the road not taken. This is a picture, or glimpse, as you call it, at life--but not just a picture of life but a picture of life in a conflicted form. It tells a story of two people who are struggling with grief in two different ways and are splitting apart because of it. How you choose to interpret it is your prerogative.
What is there is the conflict and the storytelling involved in such a conflict. The poem is centered around a dead baby and the parents grieving the baby in their own different ways. The mother is distraught and the father is distraught because his wife is distraught and he just wants things to continue as normal and have something solid in his life. They clash. There is an argument. Etc., etc. The message is confusing, the imagery is lacking, but the conflict hits you in the stomach through the use of storytelling. And that’s what matters.
However, that’s automatically a loaded topic. Come on... dead babies have a huge emotional impact. Poets are awesome because they can make a simple thing hit you in the stomach. Let’s look at eggs, for example:
Eggs
Susan Wood
Morning broke like an egg
on the kitchen floor and I hated
them, too, eggs, how easily they broke
and ran, yellow insides spilling out, oozing
and staining, the flawed
beneath what's beautiful. And I hated
my father, the one cock
in the henhouse, who laid the plate
on the table and made me
eat, who told me not to get up
until I was done, every
bite. And I hated how I gagged and cried, day
after day, until there was no time
left and he'd give in and I'd go off
to school like that, again, hungry.
But why did I hate eggs
so much? Freud, old banty rooster, who
knew a thing or two about such things, might say
I hated my self, hated the egg
growing in secret deep inside my body,
the secret about to be spilled
to the world, and maybe I did.
Or maybe it's the way the egg
repeats itself again and again, a perfect
oval every time, the way I found myself
furious, standing by my own child's bed
holding a belt, and hit, and saw her face
dissolve in yolk. But that doesn't say
enough about why we hoard
our hurts like golden eggs and foolishly
wait for them to hatch, why
we faced each other across the table,
my father and I, and fought
our battles over eggs and never fought
with them, never once picked up
those perfect ovals and sent them singing
back and forth across the room, the spell
broken like shells, until we were
covered with them, our faces golden
and laughing, both of us beautiful and flawed.
After Frost’s poem, that’s probably a welcome escape.
Food fight! Now, let’s look at her imagery and message really quick. She using the eggs as an image, obviously, with lots of nods to roosters and cocks, since that has to do with eggs. The eggs are particularly a strong imagery and without them, it’s unlikely that the poem could ever say what it wanted to say at the ending--that flaws make things beautiful. And the flaws making things beautiful is the message.
But look at the poem again. It’s a little odd... in the beginning, you have all this imagery, and then you have her breaking away and telling us that the supposed perfections which only pain us that we keep dear to ourselves and wait for them to just go away when they’ll never go away... not without us breaking them. So you have several different side notes and digressions which, if written in another way, would seem redundant and petty. But they’re not. Why? Because of the storytelling elements she uses.
Look at the poem again. She starts with a hook, continues describing the conflicts involved, including using external and internal conflicts (what happens and what she is thinking while it is happening). Then, the conclusion where she brings in all the conflicts together and resolves them, at least in her mind. Throughout the poem, there is a certain feeling of time and space--typical of stories. This is rooted in reality, where there is a logical progression of events and sequences.
And how does she tell the story? Why, she puts conflict in her imagery! Over and over, she uses violent verbs. Things are being spilled, hated, hoarded, fought over, broken. She is crying and hating and unhappy. Because of these violent verbs that are used and her sense of struggle (conflict!) it propels us to finish the poem.
But you don’t even need to have a person in the poem to make it brim of conflict. Let’s look at Neruda:
Oda al tomate
Pablo Neruda
La calle
se llenó de tomates,
mediodia,
verano,
la luz
se parte
en dos
mitades
de tomate,
corre
por las calles
el jugo.
En diciembre
se desata
el tomate,
invade
las cocinas,
entra por los almuerzos,
se sienta
reposado
en los aparadores,
entre los vasos,
las matequilleras,
los saleros azules.
Tiene
luz propia,
majestad benigna.
Devemos, por desgracia,
asesinarlo:
se hunde
el cuchillo
en su pulpa viviente,
es una roja
viscera,
un sol
fresco,
profundo,
inagotable,
llena las ensaladas
de Chile,
se casa alegremente
con la clara cebolla,
y para celebrarlo
se deja
caer
aceite,
hijo
esencial del olivo,
sobre sus hemisferios entreabiertos,
agrega
la pimienta
su fragancia,
la sal su magnetismo:
son las bodas
del día
el perejil
levanta
banderines,
las papas
hierven vigorosamente,
el asado
golpea
con su aroma
en la puerta,
es hora!
vamos!
y sobre
la mesa, en la cintura
del verano,
el tomate,
aastro de tierra,
estrella
repetida
y fecunda,
nos muestra
sus circunvoluciones,
sus canales,
la insigne plenitud
y la abundancia
sin hueso,
sin coraza,
sin escamas ni espinas,
nos entrega
el regalo
de su color fogoso
y la totalidad de su frescura.
English version is here:
Ode to a Tomato
Pablo Neruda
The street
filled with tomatoes
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera,
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth,
recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.
So I included both translations here, just in case you were curious. Pablo Neruda’s poems are not originally in English, so there are certain characteristics of his poetry that are not found a lot in English poetry.
However, notice his wording. He introduces the story with a street filled with tomatoes. Here, the tomatoes almost seem to be a person. Its juice runs through the street, it invades the kitchen, it sheds its own light and majesty. And we kill it. Once again, he uses storytelling elements. Set up who the character is and then do something horrible to the character which propels us to the ending.
This is conflict! This is storytelling!
Or how about this one?
The Beating
Ann Stanford
The first blow caught me sideways, my jaw
Shifted. The second beat my skull against my
Brain. I raised my arm against the third.
Downward my wrist fell crooked. But the sliding
Flood of sense across the ribs caught in
My lungs. I fell for a long time,
One knee bending. The fourth blow balanced me.
I doubled at the kick against my belly.
The fifth was light. I hardly felt the
Sting. And down, breaking against my side, my
Thighs, my head. My eyes burst closed, my
Mouth the thick blood curds move through. There
Were no more lights. I was flying. The
Wind, the place I lay, the silence.
My call came to a groan. Hands touched
My wrist. Disappeared. Something fell over me.
Now this white room tortures my eye.
The bed too soft to hold my breath,
Slung in plaster, caged in wood.
Shapes surround me.
No blow! No blow!
They only ask the thing I turn
Inside the black ball of my mind,
The one white thought.
Notice how it follows a story and a logical timeline, typical of storytelling. This one may not seem as obvious, since it is only a brief section of story, but I’ve actually used this poem in order to help me with my prose, just because of the forcefulness in the words.
...is there any message in the last two? Not really. And this is why I think, if there were a contest between imagery and meaning, imagery would win hands down. These two poems make things come to your head and they twist it around and make you think.
But the most striking thing of this all is the conflict and storytelling involved. There’s lots of conflict. Lots of it. Yes, it’s in the imagery. But only because if the imagery didn’t hold conflict, it wouldn’t be as interesting. After all, who would care? And the storytelling! The poets don’t just give you an abstract picture and allow you to look at it, however you wish. They force an image on you, tell you the story using stunning word choices and blow you away with their description.
Does there need to be brutality in poetry for it to hold conflict? No. In fact, the imagery doesn’t even have to hint at any sort of violence at all. All that is necessary is a bit of conflict. Check out this poem, about a writer who compares himself as a tightrope walker.
Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
So already, we can see a progression of storytelling. He’s walking across a tightrope. This is a real image that we can see in our minds and we can actually follow him. There’s a certain time line attached to it, ideal for storytelling purposes.
However, I lied. That’s not how the poem goes. Not really. This is how it is:
Constantly Risking Absurdity
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
.....Constantly risking absurdity
............................................and death
...............whenever he performs
.................................................above the heads
..........................................................................of his audience
...the poet like an acrobat
..................................climbs on rime
............................................to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
.......................................above a sea of faces
........paces his way
.........................to the other side of the day
performing entrechats
.................................and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
..............................and all without mistaking
.....................any thing
...................................for what it may not be
.....For he's the super realist
...................................who must perforce perceive
.....................taut truth
.................................before the taking of each stance or step
....in his supposed advance
......................................toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
........................................with gravity
.................................................to start her death-defying leap
And he
.........a little charleychaplin man
...............................who may or may not catch
...........her fair eternal form
...............................spreadeagled in the empty air
.................of existence
The interest comes, not really with the imagery (although there is definitely some in there) or the message (which is saying that perfection can never be achieved) but with the layout of the poem. It’s dizzying! It heightens the effect of conflict.
Conflict is so important that there are poems which start out in anguish, demanding the reader to listen. Let’s look at John Donne:
The Canonization
John Donne
FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love ;
Or chide my palsy, or my gout ;
My five gray hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout ;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve ;
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace ;
Or the king's real, or his stamp'd face
Contemplate ; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Alas ! alas ! who's injured by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.
Call's what you will, we are made such by love ;
Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find th' eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us ; we two being one, are it ;
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse ;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms ;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for love ;
And thus invoke us, "You, whom reverend love
Made one another's hermitage ;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage ;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes ;
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize—
Countries, towns, courts beg from above
A pattern of your love."
Or, if you don’t like his poem, try Plath:
Daddy
Sylvia Plath
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
John Donne is basically yelling at us and Sylvia is yelling at Daddy, who is addressed as “you.” Which means she’s yelling at us too! By addressing us this way, this holds a fair amount of tension and conflict inherently.
And, because they’re basically ranting at us, they have to explain their reasoning and thus they tell us a story. A strange story, yes, because they’re so impassioned that they might not really make sense, but they’re trying to explain themselves properly and to do that, they’re telling a story.
One more poem and I promise to shut up...
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Notice that this follows the storytelling process. It sets up a scene, describes it, and then turns the scene into a cry to a lover. Romantic fiction... except not! And yes, it has a message. And yes, it has gorgeous imagery. But if there were no storytelling involved... if we didn’t get the feeling that a man is looking out at the sea, commenting on the particulars, and then turns to his lover, tormented... it would never have the emotional impact on us that it does now.
When you write, things have to matter. This goes for short stories, poetry, whatever. To make it matter to us, you have to connect with our experiences, and the easiest way to do this is to use conflict and storytelling to draw us in and tell us your ideas. No, it’s not fiction. Poetry is more restricted. But it still needs those elements in order to become great.
I hope this explains things! If you have questions, feel free to ask.
