Poetry

I was thinking about what writers and artists were like when I was young - and I mean the people around me, not the professionals - and I remember two things, neither of which I ever really understood or participated in. The artists were always drawing what I now know to be furries (which are anthropomorphic animals, if you don't know), while the writers wrote poetry. This was a very consistent thing, regardless of how many of each I came across. Perhaps it was just the area I grew up in, or the time, but that's just how things were.

I don't intend to talk much about the artists and their furries. I was mostly uninvolved, and I've stated before that I am hardly an artist. Instead, I'm going to talk a bit about poetry.

Now, for the most part, I like poetry. The amount of talent it takes to tell a story within such strict limitations is remarkable, and when people can accomplish saying so much with so few words, it's hard not to be jealous. Honestly, my vocabulary isn't good enough to be able to make rhymes without losing meaning. It's barely good enough to write the stories that I try to write. Trying to write poems would and has ended very poorly for me the few times I have attempted it.

But the thing is, I have never enjoyed the poetry that those around me have written. For two reasons: either the poem doesn't make any sense and is about some kind of darkness that, typically, the person doesn't even really understand, or it was some sort of free form poetry. Now, I don't mean to say that free form poetry is by nature bad. Plenty of people love it. I just don't. I don't really think that it should classify as poetry just because you put emphasis on words in ways that you wouldn't normally during conversation. But I guess that's why I'm not really into the scene.

Nowadays, I don't know that many people who acted in these ways who are still acting on their creative side like they said they were going to when they were kids and pre-teens. Granted, my involvement with these people isn't what it used to be, but from what I've seen they've fallen out. At the very least, they haven't embraced it to anywhere near the levels that I have. And I wonder if that has anything to do with what it was they were writing as opposed to what I've been writing.

I'm not trying to say that I'm better then those people, as much as it may sound like I am. I'm genuinely curious if there is some kind of correlation, or if I'm just a weird exception. I'm willing to lean towards the latter, but I think it would be interesting to find out. Of course, how you'd ever figure out something like that, I have no idea.