#137. I love me,anyway

I admit I got a little off in the last few lines, but other than that, I think this is one of my best.

I'm always stressed

I have strange dress

But I love me anyway

I'm a brat

I eat cheese like a rat

But I love me anyway

I'm melodramatic as hell

I can't (hand) write so well

But I love me anyway

I'm an annoying rocker boy and a pop princess

I'm over-obsessed

But I love me anyway 

I'm out of control

I can never just roll

But I love me anyway 

I'm unsure

I'm totally obscure

I'm think too often with my heart

My mind is in a world apart

My mind is iron and my heart is impure

I'm am way too insecure

But for my all my faults

For all my salt

I would like to say

That I love me,anyway 

Author's Note

Ignore grammatical issues, for most are purposeful.

Reviews

[JayG]

• I'm always stressed

You need to look at your words from the seat of a reader. From their viewpoint, someone they know nothing about, just told them they’re stressed, for unstated reasons. So?

Assume you’re on a bus and a stranger sits next to you. Then, with no preamble, they tell you they’re always stressed. Would you be anxious to know why this stranger felt it necessary to tell you that?

Let’s make it more like this situation and say that while this person can talk to you, they can’t hear your response.

Seems to me that most people would move away. You?

My point? No one cares about you unless you make them care with something more than declarations. They’re no more interested in hearing your woes than you’re burning to know mine, and everyone else's.

As a minor point: You're young. Your future, as you see it, is uncertain. People are always making demands, and have expectatins you're not certain you can meet. And you aren't yet certain of your capabilities (in other words, like everyone else in your situation). So here's an observation that might make sense:

Next year, you'll look back at what stresses you today and wonder why you worried, because your problems, then, seem much worse. They're not, though. It's just that you'll have resolved this year's crop, and the new probems wouldn't be problems if you saw the solution. So take it as it comes. And be the best you that you can. And if those who seem to be ahead of you in line make you feel second rate, turn around and look at how long the line is behind you—filled with people who wish they were you.

• I have strange dress

By whose standards? The reader has no clue of what you mean by that. It seems more that you needed a rhyme, snd so....

• But I love me anyway

And? You open with a statement that you’re stressed, but never explain in what way, why, or anything meaningful. Then, having made the rhyme, you abandon the thought. But the thought is what matters in poetry, not the rhyme. Rhyming is an accent, and if done right, seems almost accidental, because the word is perfect for the thought.

And on this line, having given not the smallest reason for not liking yourself (or liking yourself, too), and having given the reader no reason to dislike you, you brag that you’re your own admirer?

• I'm a brat I eat cheese like a rat

So, when given cheese, you get down on all fours, and use your mouth, alone, to gobble that cheese? It might not be what you mean, but it is, precisely, what you just told the reader, simply to make a rhyme.

In this piece you ignore prosody, which is at the heart of poetry. You don’t indicate stanzas, and your focus is on rhyming.

But the entire purpose of poetry is to move the reader emotionally. The rhyming only acts as an accent. The moment you make it the goal, especially via rhymed couplets, it to often becomes doggerel.

Take a trip to Amazon, and read the excerpt to Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled. You’ll be glad you did. What he has to say about the flow of language, and prosody, in general, is something all writers should know.

And hit the Shmoop site. It’s useful for all things scholastic, Select Student, then, using the button next to the midpage search window, choose Poetry. Lots and lots of great poetry there, analyzed in great detail to show how and why they were so successful. If nothing else, you'll enjoy the poems

You might also check the library for Mary Oliver’s, A Poetry Handbook. That, too is a great resource.

And here’s the thing. Once you master a few of the techniques your options multiply, and your poetry dramatically improves. The comments you get, here, will multiply, too, and, the act of writing becomes a lot more fun.

For fiction, dig up a copy of Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It’s a warm easy read that will have you saying, “That makes sense. But it’s so obvious. Why didn’t I see it, myself?”

So…I know you thought this one of your better works, and hoped for a more flattering response. I also know that something like this can be hard to take. I’ve been there more than once or twice. But…will we address the problem we don’t see as being one? No, which is why I commented.

Something else worth noting is that what I said has nothing to do with your talent. The problem is that your teachers never mentioned that the only kind of writing you’re bring taught is nonfiction, to prepare you for the needs of employment. Professional knowledge, like that of the various writing professions, is acquired in addition to those general skills.

So...you probably now know more about writing than any of the others in your school—including the teachers, who learned to write in the same classrooms. Of course that means they know nothing, while you know .2% of what you need. But still, a win is a win.😆

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

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