Where are all of the poems?
Where are all of the poems? That is a question that's been bugging me for awhile. Of course, I don't mean to be overly picky or demanding of the Starmen.net community and you might fine this article a little whiney, seeing as how we seem to have a semi-healthy amount of poems being contributed. The thing is though, that the poetry section has been up for so long, and yet only has 320 plus poems. This may seem like a fair share of poetry, but look at the amount of articles this site has managed to accumulate over the ages-It has over 820 articles. To be fair though, a good 130 of these articles are a part of the Starmen.net Essay Contest and the debates (And responses to the debates), but even with that considered, there is still about double the amount of articles than poems.
This, to me, is baffling. A well-written article requires a great deal more work than a well-written poem. In an article you have to first come up with an idea for your article, then think about it. A lot. You have to think of supporting elements to your arguments if you're presenting a theory or a suggestion and you have to continually expand on your ideas. Your presentation of this idea also follows a very rigid and structured-It must contain a beginning, a body, and a conclusion. To top this off, for your article to be considered high quality you have to go through and check the mechanics of your writing-give the grammar and spelling a look over. This...takes a lot of time.
A poem, on the hand, is very non-linear. You can do anything in a poem and no matter how weird or crazy it is, as long as you say it is a poem, it is a poem. Poems also don't need hard evidence, or even have to make complete sense-They're mostly just ideas, thoughts, emotions, and events written in a stirring manner. Poems can be of just about any length. My poems, for example, range from ten lines to six pages. If you're going with haikus you're looking at three lines of text! Articles, on the other hand, have to be at least three structured paragraphs consisting of five sentences each and you can't just arrange your text into three or four different blocks 'cause Pappycat can't be fooled that easily.
I've written three articles (Although I wanted this one to lead the pack) and in my experiences I've found that an articles takes a lot longer than a poem. Take this article you're reading right now, for instance. This is the third time I've started over from scratch. I've been working on this article for about a week now and I've probably worked on it for a good three-four hours or so. The first version I wrote so late at night/early in the morning it turned out to be ridiculously long and there was a segment about dogs talking with British accents and playing tic-tac-toe by barfing on the wall. The sad part was that I actually stopped writing for ten minutes and laughed after writing that segment before returning to writing. However, at the end of that first article I realized that no one would really care about the poetry section enough to read through ever last word of it, and two, the end was simply delirious, wild, crazy stuff full of irrelevant analogies. I decided to start my second draft sometime at a decent part of the day when I was awake and sane. This time, however, at the end of the article I decided that I came off as a little too preachy, so I decided in my third article, I'd streamline things a bit and downplay the preaching.
On the other hand, my longest poem I've ever written The Runaway Brothers Hard Luck Club Band took me around an hour and a half, and good twenty of those minutes were just spell checking and proofreading. Now, my normal sized poems (Generally between a page and two pages) normally take me between five and twenty minutes. Back when I was in my Earthbound craze this April, it was not uncommon for me to write three or four Earthbound poems a night. Currently, I've written over 200 Earthbound poems.
Now, the thing that baffles me is that the articles outnumber the poems. Poems take so little time to write compared to articles, and yet articles surpass the poetry section by a wide margin. People obviously aren't writing poetry. Why? I've been thinking a lot, and I've though of a few reasons why people might not be writing poetry.
1. "Poetry is boring!"
2. "I hate how Poetry always rhyme"
3. "My poems are horrible..."/"I can't write poetry!"
4. "I can write real life poetry, but not Earthbound poetry.."
5. "All my ideas for poems are all ready taken!"
The first two reasons are reason I perfectly understand why a person would say. In school, when poetry is shoved down your throat, teachers have a tendency to pick the drollest, most un-interesting poems known to man. To make matters worse, there's also Shakespeare. Shakespeare was beautiful back in the day but that day is so far away that its emotional implications are almost incomprehensible. Not all poetry is boring-If you look around, I'm certain you'll find something that's interesting. In fact, you can probably find something interesting. Have you ever heard and enjoyed "The night before Christmas" or "The Midnight ride of Paul Revere?" Both of these are poems, but more ballad-esque and longer. Another thing about the poems you encounter in school is that they almost always rhyme. Poems don't have to rhyme. There's a very modern form of poetry out there right now called free-verse, that basically goes "If you don't put a period at the end of a line, that's a poem" and the truth is you can get by with a period now and then anyway. Poetry doesn't have to rhyme-that's just a general misconception.
The third thing could possibly be a matter of self-esteem. My best advice is not to look at your poem or read it directly after writing it-Let it sit for a few days and then take a look at it. For some reason a 'fresh' poem is never entirely satisfying to some people. Also, some people might deem themselves incapable of writing poetry. This is rubbish. If you're a fan of Earthbound, you're obviously creative enough to enjoy Earthbound, and you're certainly creative enough to write one. That's not just me trying to butter you up, either-creative individuals are the ones who write poetry (generally) and the Earthbound community houses some of the most unique and creative people I've ever met. Besides, if you're not happy with your poems at first, keep writing-the more experience you gain the higher quality your poetry will become.
Next, writing Earthbound poetry may seem hard- after all, it's just a video game. You might find it a breeze to write poetry about real life, but might struggle with Earthboundy poems. The most effective remedy to that is to bring real life to Earthbound. For example, maybe walking around Fourside's towering skyscrapers reminds you of a time when you first walked the streets of New York, and you try to bring that same feeling of smallness to Ness and co. You kinda have to dig deeper into the Mother world and blend the experiences with real life.
Now, you may be thinking, this is all good and nice, but your ideas for poems have all ready been used. This should be the last thing stopping you. The reason is because poetry is a reflection of one's mind and 'soul' at the time of writing. This means that Mrmonkeyman77 writing a poem about Mr. Saturn will be completely different than ultimatebelch3 writing a poem about Mr. Saturn. This also means that if Mr. Monkeyman77 wrote a poem about Mr. Saturn one evening in June 2003 and tried to write a poem about Mr. Saturn some evening in late 2004, the two poems would also be very different. Don't let the fact that a topic has been chosen deter you-just try to bring out your thoughts and feelings on that particular subject.
Those are my five rebuttals to what are probably the most common reasons/excuses why people aren't writing Earthbound poetry. There is, of course, one last option, however. Maybe the Earthbound Community simply doesn't care about poetry. Could that be the simple, ultimate answer? That alternative sort of...frightens me, because a person whose mind is closed to an idea is the hardest to open. If people really don't care about poetry, then...Is there anything that really can be done?
I notice that sometimes somebody will suddenly appear and write some poems, or maybe even just one, and then disappear from the poetry section forever. For all the poets out there and future poets-never stop thinking. Never turn your mind off. Do you ever notice that sometimes when you're writing a poem, certain lines of text appear that you want to put down, but it just seems out of place? Don't forget those ideas-they can lead you into other Earthbound or general poems which in turn can lead you into other poems, if you just keep writing poetry, and never turn off your mind.
Sometimes I think that maybe the poetry problem is all in my head, and that I'm just too enthused for my own good, and somewhere along the way I lost my mind. Maybe there really isn't a lack of poetry-maybe I'm just expecting too much. I just think that it should not be a rare feat for one poet to write over five Earthbound poems. Maybe my perception's skewed, and that's too much to ask. I would really love feedback on this ungodly long article. In fact, if you actually read this word for word, you owe it to yourself to email me, even if it is just to say shut up. Please, email me and tell me what you think. I'm begging you. However, It would be horribly anti-climatic for me to end an article with a plea for feedback, so I'll give you generous readers a conclusion, free of charge.
After much thinking, I am still equally baffled at the shortage of poetry as I was when I sat down to write this third draft. Don't let my analogies to articles in the earlier half of this article give you the impression that I'm anti-articles in any way. On the contrary-I was merely pointing out the fact that poetry needs some loving as well. Poetry is simple, satisfying, and fun, and something this community hasn't been doing enough of. Write some poetry. Please. When you're bored or just have some free time and an itch to write, pick up a pen or snap open notepad.exe and write a poem. And please, don't just write poetry once-you owe it to yourself to see how far you can go.
Where are all of the poems? That is a question that's been bugging me for awhile. Of course, I don't mean to be overly picky or demanding of the Starmen.net community and you might fine this article a little whiney, seeing as how we seem to have a semi-healthy amount of poems being contributed. The thing is though, that the poetry section has been up for so long, and yet only has 320 plus poems. This may seem like a fair share of poetry, but look at the amount of articles this site has managed to accumulate over the ages-It has over 820 articles. To be fair though, a good 130 of these articles are a part of the Starmen.net Essay Contest and the debates (And responses to the debates), but even with that considered, there is still about double the amount of articles than poems.
This, to me, is baffling. A well-written article requires a great deal more work than a well-written poem. In an article you have to first come up with an idea for your article, then think about it. A lot. You have to think of supporting elements to your arguments if you're presenting a theory or a suggestion and you have to continually expand on your ideas. Your presentation of this idea also follows a very rigid and structured-It must contain a beginning, a body, and a conclusion. To top this off, for your article to be considered high quality you have to go through and check the mechanics of your writing-give the grammar and spelling a look over. This...takes a lot of time.
A poem, on the hand, is very non-linear. You can do anything in a poem and no matter how weird or crazy it is, as long as you say it is a poem, it is a poem. Poems also don't need hard evidence, or even have to make complete sense-They're mostly just ideas, thoughts, emotions, and events written in a stirring manner. Poems can be of just about any length. My poems, for example, range from ten lines to six pages. If you're going with haikus you're looking at three lines of text! Articles, on the other hand, have to be at least three structured paragraphs consisting of five sentences each and you can't just arrange your text into three or four different blocks 'cause Pappycat can't be fooled that easily.
I've written three articles (Although I wanted this one to lead the pack) and in my experiences I've found that an articles takes a lot longer than a poem. Take this article you're reading right now, for instance. This is the third time I've started over from scratch. I've been working on this article for about a week now and I've probably worked on it for a good three-four hours or so. The first version I wrote so late at night/early in the morning it turned out to be ridiculously long and there was a segment about dogs talking with British accents and playing tic-tac-toe by barfing on the wall. The sad part was that I actually stopped writing for ten minutes and laughed after writing that segment before returning to writing. However, at the end of that first article I realized that no one would really care about the poetry section enough to read through ever last word of it, and two, the end was simply delirious, wild, crazy stuff full of irrelevant analogies. I decided to start my second draft sometime at a decent part of the day when I was awake and sane. This time, however, at the end of the article I decided that I came off as a little too preachy, so I decided in my third article, I'd streamline things a bit and downplay the preaching.
On the other hand, my longest poem I've ever written The Runaway Brothers Hard Luck Club Band took me around an hour and a half, and good twenty of those minutes were just spell checking and proofreading. Now, my normal sized poems (Generally between a page and two pages) normally take me between five and twenty minutes. Back when I was in my Earthbound craze this April, it was not uncommon for me to write three or four Earthbound poems a night. Currently, I've written over 200 Earthbound poems.
Now, the thing that baffles me is that the articles outnumber the poems. Poems take so little time to write compared to articles, and yet articles surpass the poetry section by a wide margin. People obviously aren't writing poetry. Why? I've been thinking a lot, and I've though of a few reasons why people might not be writing poetry.
1. "Poetry is boring!"
2. "I hate how Poetry always rhyme"
3. "My poems are horrible..."/"I can't write poetry!"
4. "I can write real life poetry, but not Earthbound poetry.."
5. "All my ideas for poems are all ready taken!"
The first two reasons are reason I perfectly understand why a person would say. In school, when poetry is shoved down your throat, teachers have a tendency to pick the drollest, most un-interesting poems known to man. To make matters worse, there's also Shakespeare. Shakespeare was beautiful back in the day but that day is so far away that its emotional implications are almost incomprehensible. Not all poetry is boring-If you look around, I'm certain you'll find something that's interesting. In fact, you can probably find something interesting. Have you ever heard and enjoyed "The night before Christmas" or "The Midnight ride of Paul Revere?" Both of these are poems, but more ballad-esque and longer. Another thing about the poems you encounter in school is that they almost always rhyme. Poems don't have to rhyme. There's a very modern form of poetry out there right now called free-verse, that basically goes "If you don't put a period at the end of a line, that's a poem" and the truth is you can get by with a period now and then anyway. Poetry doesn't have to rhyme-that's just a general misconception.
The third thing could possibly be a matter of self-esteem. My best advice is not to look at your poem or read it directly after writing it-Let it sit for a few days and then take a look at it. For some reason a 'fresh' poem is never entirely satisfying to some people. Also, some people might deem themselves incapable of writing poetry. This is rubbish. If you're a fan of Earthbound, you're obviously creative enough to enjoy Earthbound, and you're certainly creative enough to write one. That's not just me trying to butter you up, either-creative individuals are the ones who write poetry (generally) and the Earthbound community houses some of the most unique and creative people I've ever met. Besides, if you're not happy with your poems at first, keep writing-the more experience you gain the higher quality your poetry will become.
Next, writing Earthbound poetry may seem hard- after all, it's just a video game. You might find it a breeze to write poetry about real life, but might struggle with Earthboundy poems. The most effective remedy to that is to bring real life to Earthbound. For example, maybe walking around Fourside's towering skyscrapers reminds you of a time when you first walked the streets of New York, and you try to bring that same feeling of smallness to Ness and co. You kinda have to dig deeper into the Mother world and blend the experiences with real life.
Now, you may be thinking, this is all good and nice, but your ideas for poems have all ready been used. This should be the last thing stopping you. The reason is because poetry is a reflection of one's mind and 'soul' at the time of writing. This means that Mrmonkeyman77 writing a poem about Mr. Saturn will be completely different than ultimatebelch3 writing a poem about Mr. Saturn. This also means that if Mr. Monkeyman77 wrote a poem about Mr. Saturn one evening in June 2003 and tried to write a poem about Mr. Saturn some evening in late 2004, the two poems would also be very different. Don't let the fact that a topic has been chosen deter you-just try to bring out your thoughts and feelings on that particular subject.
Those are my five rebuttals to what are probably the most common reasons/excuses why people aren't writing Earthbound poetry. There is, of course, one last option, however. Maybe the Earthbound Community simply doesn't care about poetry. Could that be the simple, ultimate answer? That alternative sort of...frightens me, because a person whose mind is closed to an idea is the hardest to open. If people really don't care about poetry, then...Is there anything that really can be done?
I notice that sometimes somebody will suddenly appear and write some poems, or maybe even just one, and then disappear from the poetry section forever. For all the poets out there and future poets-never stop thinking. Never turn your mind off. Do you ever notice that sometimes when you're writing a poem, certain lines of text appear that you want to put down, but it just seems out of place? Don't forget those ideas-they can lead you into other Earthbound or general poems which in turn can lead you into other poems, if you just keep writing poetry, and never turn off your mind.
Sometimes I think that maybe the poetry problem is all in my head, and that I'm just too enthused for my own good, and somewhere along the way I lost my mind. Maybe there really isn't a lack of poetry-maybe I'm just expecting too much. I just think that it should not be a rare feat for one poet to write over five Earthbound poems. Maybe my perception's skewed, and that's too much to ask. I would really love feedback on this ungodly long article. In fact, if you actually read this word for word, you owe it to yourself to email me, even if it is just to say shut up. Please, email me and tell me what you think. I'm begging you. However, It would be horribly anti-climatic for me to end an article with a plea for feedback, so I'll give you generous readers a conclusion, free of charge.
After much thinking, I am still equally baffled at the shortage of poetry as I was when I sat down to write this third draft. Don't let my analogies to articles in the earlier half of this article give you the impression that I'm anti-articles in any way. On the contrary-I was merely pointing out the fact that poetry needs some loving as well. Poetry is simple, satisfying, and fun, and something this community hasn't been doing enough of. Write some poetry. Please. When you're bored or just have some free time and an itch to write, pick up a pen or snap open notepad.exe and write a poem. And please, don't just write poetry once-you owe it to yourself to see how far you can go.
