You and I

You looked at me like no one had before
With a kindness in your smile
And a sadness in your eyes
I could tell someone hurt you
Someone you once considered close

I looked back at you
A frown upon my lips
And an unknown feeling behind my eyes
I was tired and frustrated with life
It had disappointed me so many times

I stared at you with envy
You knew how you felt about things and people
Even if those feelings were unwanted
At least you knew what they were
I had no clue how I felt for anyone
Not until I met you

You stared at me with a gleam in your eyes
I wondered what you saw
Was it something no one else did
Some flicker of hope in this dark world
A soul not unlike your own
Someone who could finally understand

I look away afraid to show you all of me
There are parts I've never shown anyone
I want you to see, to understand me
But I'm scared of what you'll think of me
When you see the cracks in my foundation
The ones they created within me

You look away from me
And I fear what you've seen
Was it something too dark, too ugly
Some part of me is hidden beneath the surface
So far even I can't see it
Hidden and masked too well

Here we are
Two people so alike and yet so different
Broken in our own ways
Stubborn and unwilling to make a move
To stay or to go
12/03/22

Reviews

[JayG]

• You looked at me like no one had before

I know. I’m special that way.

• I could tell someone hurt you

Uhh… I think you mistyped the email address because I’m fine.

• I looked back at you

Stop and think about this from a reader’s viewpoint—something you should do to everything you write.

Someone unknown, of unknown age, situation, and gender, is talking to someone not introduced, about unknown events that took place in an unknowable location, for undefined reasons. Why would the reader care? Unknown people doing unknown things happen all around us, all the time. We ignore them. Why then, would a reader want to read a letter about such an event, unless it in some way involved them?

And that’s my point. As soon as you talk TO the reader you’re lecturing them. You’re dealing in facts, and things meaningful to you. That’s nonfiction writing, not poetry. Poetry’s goal is to make the reader feel and care, not become better educated on what matters to you.

So, we don’t tell the reader that we cried at a funeral, we write a poem about death and loss that makes the READER weep. Poetry is emotion-based and character-centric. It makes us BECOME the person in the poem, not hear about them, second hand. That’s fact-based and author-centric. In other words, the nonfiction writing approach we learn in school as they prepare us for employment. Great for reports and essays but useless for fiction and poetry.

My point? It’s not a matter of talent, it’s that poetry isn’t written with our school-day writing approach. And since they didn’t give it to us, we need to seek it out, if for no other reason than that it makes the writing of poetry more fun, and gives us greater resources and options. Like the proverbial chicken soup for a cold, it might not help, but it sure can't hurt.

One really good resource is Mary Oliver’s, A Poetry Handbook. For unknown reasons, it’s available for free download, here: https://yes-pdf.com/book/1596

The Shmoop site is another useful resource. Log in as Student, then use the midpage button to select Poetry. Lots of great poems are analyzed in-depth there.

So…not good news, I know, but since you’ll never address the problem you don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/