We usually think of poetry as a complex form of art, full of figurative language and hidden meanings that only professional poets and our English professors can truly understand. We analyze poems, trying to determine what the poet is trying to say, trying to find their true meanings. However, the essence of poetry is something much more than just to convey a single message. Poems express the life that we see around ourselves. Whether a poem depicts a flock of wild geese or a simple red wheelbarrow, it shows us the different ways we each see the world and its impact on us.

Last week’s workshop with professional poet and playwright, Melanie Goodreaux, captivated how simple yet powerful poetry can be. Through reading different styles of poetry such as Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” and William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow” and “This is Just to Say”, I was able to see how each poem reflects the voice of its author. Goodreaux pointed out how these poems depicted observations and memories that held a significance towards the poet and their own individual lives. The wild geese spoken of in Mary Oliver’s poem are actually reminiscent of her own memories of seeing migrating flocks of geese in the place where she grew up. Because of these memories, Mary Oliver uses the image of migrating geese as her representation of the ongoing cycle of life in her poem. In “This is Just to Say”, William Carlos Williams describes a moment of eating a frozen plum that a significant other was perhaps saving for breakfast. This poem illustrates a simple action and yet it is a moment that happened in the author’s life and holds its own significance to him. The images that these two poets created in their individual poems are completely different but yet they both reflect their personal lives.

As Goodreaux led us into our first poetry-writing exercise, I found myself struggling to find something to write. I didn’t know what would make a good poem. However as I followed her prompt to mimic the structure of Oliver’s poem, I found myself writing down my doubts, my fears, and my own life experiences. I started writing the thoughts that were on my mind rather than focusing on making my words sound good. I wrote down the raw emotions that I was feeling and the significant moments that I remembered. I wrote a poem. As I read my poem aloud to the class, I realized that writing down my thoughts and sharing them was a liberating experience for myself and at the same time my peers were also able to learn more about me.

Goodreaux’s worksop showed me that poetry is all about personal voice and expressing our own unique values and experiences. It is an art form that is accessible to everyone and there is no right way to do it. We do not have to be professional poets to write poetry. All we need to do is find our individual voice.