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Songs are the major form of poetry I am exposed to, so I have been listening to how they are put together, hoping to learn more about what makes a successful poem.

I’m not sure I am learning what I intended to, but it has been pretty interesting, anyway. Songs have some advantages poetry doesn’t. They have the musical component to create specific emotion that poems can’t rely on. The vocalization can be stretched or contracted, so that it fits in a particular space. I think there is more leeway given to songs, a far as meaning goes (at least listening to some of the more recent Chili Peppers songs). I think I like that there is the ability to steer the listener to a particular feel, having music with the poetry. Poems are expected to be tighter, stronger. On the other hand, there is more room for individual interpretation in poetry. I will just have to steer as best I can with only the words, unless I learn some musical theory, and an instrument.

Song poetry is certainly different than essay writing. Any of my writing teachers would have been disapproving, at best, of how many lines start with “I” or “you”, or of asking a question that isn’t leading the reader into the answer the writer wants to present. I had been feeling like I was writing badly, when I did both of those things. BUT, the type of writing I was taught is, for the most part, impersonal, perfect, convincing, but emotionally distanced, in order to clearly express the topic.

The first drafts of the poetry for me are more of an outpouring. When I write, I have an image of tearing through my skin, grasping my ribs just below the sternum, and pulling them apart to expose the deepest parts of me, my head thrown back, and face serene. But, no one will ever see the written expression of that raw emotion from me again, so I have to bring some discipline to the words. I have to be unemotional about them, so that their form is not distracting, and so that they aren’t just a gush of my guts and pain.