https://allpoetry.com/poem/18136366-A-Note-in-My-Pill-Bottle-by-Ghost-of-a-Goddess (Don't worry, I'm still keeping myself going, but don't be surprised if I disappear.)

When I started recording myself reading poetry, I was shocked by what my voice sounds like. I knew that you hear your voice differently from how others hear it, but I didn't realize how different it was. I played some recordings to my sibling, and they said it was in fact how my voice sounds like. I also find it strange that my voice inflections sound different in the recordings from the way I hear them when I recite.

How do you define "heightened language from everyday speech? I feel like some modern poetry might fall outside that.

Sorry for the confusing description. LOL It didn't occur to me that it would mean anything other than heads of gummy fish. Looking at it that way is really funny though. :D

In my opinion, Fire and Ice is the most overrated poem I've read. It's really famous, but it really isn't that good. Frost has so many poems that are much better. I don't know what it is about Frost, but his most famous poems are not even near his best ones in my opinion, and some of them are among the most famous poems of all time. I feel bad for him, honestly. I'd take Desert Places or Wild Grapes over The Road Not Taken or Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening any day.

I realize this is an old thread, but I'll respond anyway. My ninth grade literature book defined poetry as writing with a particular content, a particular form, and a particular effect. It seems like a strange definition, but I like it. A poem has to say something. It has to have some sort of form, such as poetic devices, line breaks, stanzas, etc. And it has to effect a message or evoke an emotion. I also like looking at poetry through these three qualifications. Do I like the content? Do I like the mechanics? Does it make me think or create an emotion in me? It's why my full answer to who my favorite poet is is Longfellow for content, cummings for form, and Plath for effect.

I really like what you said about having poetry classes for appreciation rather than analysis. I think the way poetry is taught in schools is really destined to turn people away from poetry. It isn't even just poetry, though. I was thinking earlier today about how much I'm dreading having to do assignments on Frankenstein in ELA class once we finish the book. I like classics and read them because I genuinely enjoy them or think they are well-written (and if I don't think either of those about a book I won't read it). I already finished Frankenstein and really liked it, but now I have to transfer from a mode of appreciating the book to a mandatory analytical mode. And again, I enjoy analyzing poetry and classic books and do it anyway out of my own free will, but now I will be forced to do it and will be graded on it. For people who don't already like classical writings, I see why they grow to hate them, since it's probably much worse for them.

It feels a bit awkward writing this, but I'm Jewish and just celebrated Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year). Our Rosh Hashanah dinners include many traditional foods, some universal and some just family traditions. These include dates, apple with honey, fish, beet greens, and pomegranate. Our family eats gummy fish heads (because we prefer them to actual fish heads), peas so we have a year of peace, and banana bread so we have a bonne année (good year in French). These are basically prayers for the coming year.

Thank you. It really means a lot. And as an update, I managed to get my mother to schedule me an intake appointment for therapy without requiring an explanation.

I kind of ran into a problem: I can't figure out a theme for the chapbook. When I ask myself what I want to write about, I feel like I don't want to write about at all. Can someone help me or give me advice?

I won't be able to be there, so if there is anything we need to know from that meeting, will it be put on here?

Exactly. And one of my favorite things about reading poetry is the emotional impact. If you write, translate, or read while focusing on meaning, you are missing the fundamental emotional aspect of poetry. And having a nice sound is what makes an okay poem with good content into a great poem.

I've had several people tell me that they don't like poetry because they could never understand it. Of course they would have a hard time understanding poetry if the poems they read in school is in Elizabethian or Victorian poetic English that they have to figure out on top of the poetry itself or they have to read less accessible poets like Dickinson (not to hate on her, but her poetry actually requires deciphering, unlike most poets, and teachers and textbooks have students read her a lot instead of, say, Whitman or Teasdale). And don't even get me started on the whole idea that teachers and students have that poetry is a puzzle you have to analyze and figure out. Collins wrote a poem about this called "Introduction to Poetry", which I would highly recommend. I've heard of some teachers/professors using song lyrics in classes, which I think can solve problems of accessibility and interest. There is a Youtuber (he's not active anymore) called the Pop Song Professor who talks about this.

It's a pocket poets collection. They also had Ariel at the bookstore but the book I got has a lot more poems and costed about the same. (Plus it's very small, which I like.)

I usually get poetry books from the library, but I bought a book of Plath last week. I have read a handful of her poems before and really liked them but I have had a hard time finding actual books of her poems at the library. I've already gotten into it and, yes, I have gotten triggered. But I like how she has such an intense emotional impact on me.

Just call me Ghost of a Goddess. I am an Angeleno. I started writing poetry seriously only a little less than three years ago, but I've taken it very seriously and think I've progressed very quickly. My favorite poets are Longfellow (content-wise), cummings (mechanics-wise), and Plath (effect-wise). I have had a hard time writing this summer and want to get back into it, so I'm hoping this project might help. I have written a chapbook for a school assignment once before. School will be starting for me at the beginning of the month and, like I said, I haven't been writing much lately, so I don't really know how much I will end up doing. Maybe I'll try to write four drafts a week and revise two per week. I might adjust my goals later.

Cool! I had no idea sloths could do that! My sister really likes sloths so I'll have to tell her that.

While the planets in our solar system were still planet embryos, Jupiter started coming closer in its orbit to the asteroid belt and not only sucked in material but also launched asteroids at the inner planets. This was called the Late Heavy Bombardment and is the reason for the Moon's many craters. It also prevented the asteroid belt from forming into a planet by sucking up much of the materials in the vicinity. The reason it stopped was because the gravitation of the newly forming Saturn pulled it back into its current orbit. (In case you're not so familiar with astronomy, the order of planets from the Sun is Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, [asteroid belt,]Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. ) I don't know if anyone else likes astronomy, but I think it's cool and most people I know find early periods of history like this controversial, so it's nice to talk about this kind of thing with people who aren't going to have problems with it.

The first poem I ever wrote was (most likely) a haiku for school when I was in second grade. My mother, actually, was visiting our class to teach us about haiku. Technically, the first poem I wrote in my head was a wordku about I think polar bears? that morning (I never wrote it down and have little memory of it or the haiku I wrote later that day I think about autumn). During my 4th grade poetry unit, I wrote a poem outside school about a car alarm keeping me awake, so that was the first I wrote not for school. The first poem I wrote when I was getting serious about poetry was an awkward iambic poem about friendship being my only home, and it used quotes from poems I had read like sources in a research paper. LOL. My poems from that stage of my writing were all awkward, humorously bad poems with forced rhyme and forced meter and which often said nothing. Most of the poems I wrote that first year are absolute trash but have sentimental value to me, so I can't bring myself to throw them out and instead have a ''doggerel pile'' sitting on my shelf.😆

Personally, I have written about personal subjects many times, but I hesitate to share them. My former system for logging my poems included how willing I would be to let someone I know see each poem. Honestly, I'm still struggling with this; I'm terrified of people knowing the thoughts I have that I keep secret, and I protect my poems because of it.