My First Poem (pt. 1)

The Beginning- Middle School

The first time I was exposed to poetry, like many others, was in a public education English class setting. A quick one maybe two week unit that we breezed past with little thought. From my memory, my middle school poetry unit was a simple, “Go outside and write about it”. And I wrote a Haikyu.

Nothing that I found exciting. I remember looking at my paper and thinking, “I’d be easier if I just wrote a story about being outside instead.” And the joy of poetry that my English teacher expected never flourished.

Then, came college.

Table of Contents

• The Beginning- Middle School

• My First Real Poetry Class- I Hated it

  • Ekphrastic Poetry

  • Give me Bitter Meat

  • My Assignment

My First Real Poetry Class- I Hated it

I attended a catholic college in my home city because it was the cheapest option given to me of the several I applied to. All students are required to take certain classes their first year. And one of those classes, was Art and Literature.

I quite liked the Professor. Actually, I hope to send that professor a copy of my first novel, or several novels. Along with some other special gifts as a thank you for continually supporting my growth and development in personal writing. But I’m getting side tracked.

I hated the Art and Literature class. Loathed it. This class, while I loved the professor, only managed to make me absolutely hate reading poetry. I was already angry when we were made to read one poem, with an accompanying picture, for three days. Three whole days! And remember! This is COLLEGE! Classes aren’t 45 minutes long, they’re an hour and change. Three hours on this stupid poem!

Let me share the poem with you now.

“But why was this all spread out over several indents, why not in one sentence all together?”

Because they’re full of themselves and wanted to take up space by manspreading. I don’t care!

In literature, asking “why this?” Is never a bad question. I’ve read several stories that guide you to asking that very question. Authors will confuse you or leave you unfulfilled to get you to engage with their work. Artists will do it too. There is intention behind everything, even if it was not originally planned by the author themself.

But that poem!

That poem had nothing to dig into. Three whole hours! A firetruck with a number five driving loudly around a city. Woop-dee-doo you wrote a poem about it. Can we move on now?

The rest of the semester was similarly miserable. I engaged, like the good little student I am, and remained polite. But I hated stepping foot into that room. And I was absolutely not alone. I pushed through though, and then came a big assignment.

We had to write an essay about a poem. Break down the literary devices used, what the intention was, how we interpreted the poem, and yadda yadda. What we thought about it as well. Basic stuff. The section talking about which poem you wrote about was interesting.

You had three options:

1. Pick a poem discussed in the class

2. Find a poem online and discuss that

3. Write your own poem (and explain your own literary devices)

Since I hated every poem we talked about, and I had no energy to search the internet to find something of interest, I gave up and decided to write my own. Even though the last time I had even considered writing a poem was in middle school, and I hated it, I was so filled with rage that anything was better than suffering through another horrible poem.

So I pulled up a music video that I had been obsessed with at the time, and began writing the first thing that came to mind.

Ekphrastic Poetry

Yeah, a kpop song. We listen and we don’t judge, okay? The idea was a simple one. Write a Ekphrastic poem based off of a music video I was obsessed with at the time(Hwasa Maria). Ekphrastic is a poem that was essentially described as fanfic- being inspired by something else to write a poem. The poem about the firetruck was also a ekphrastic poem. At the very least I can do better than that.

I could go into a very thorough analysis of this music video, but I’ll stop myself for now and give the basic gist of what this video discusses : "when you’re famous, people are out to get you”.

In roughly ten minutes I typed out my little poem, in the style of a song, and I was done. (The poem posted here has some very minor edits, such as single word changes, but otherwise it’s the same poem I turned in)

Give me Bitter Meat

This heart tastes of sadness and regret, just right with a pinch of salt 

This liver tastes of fear, add a bit of onion powder to make it pop 

This brain tastes of sweet anguish, a bit of lemon on the side- as I like it 

I wonder what will be served next at this table of human flesh 

Who brought me this boring meal? 

Give me one of strong emotional turmoil 

Something to satisfy my boredom 

Bring me something interesting 

Here is the stomach, left raw with oregano 

I placed out your forks and knives just right 

Dig into this feast I prepared, wipe up your mess 

Don’t fill up before you’ve even gotten to the last course 

Who brought me this boring meal? 

Give me one of strong emotional turmoil 

Something to satisfy my boredom 

Bring me something interesting 

How dare she serve me a plate full of joy? 

How dare this human die in peace? 

How dare they waste my time? 

Bring me another plate, madam! Something with better flavor 

Who were these humans before arriving on my plate? I do not care 

Why does their suffering taste and smell so delectable? I do not know 

Pass me the jewels and diamonds, so that I may eat it alongside the joints 

I did not torment these people to be left empty 

Who brought me this boring meal? 

Give me one of strong emotional turmoil 

Something to satisfy my boredom 

Bring me something interesting

(This is a really good poem I gave myself shivers)

My Assignment

Well, what did you think?

I typed up my essay. By chance, the paragraph where I described my own literary decisions was placed at the end. I discussed how I designed it to be written in the form of a song, in replication of the music video.

When she graded it, she left a special comment. I don’t have the exact comment saved, but it went something like this…

“You didn’t make any mention before this paragraph that this is something you yourself wrote. Which tells me something. This entire time I thought this was a professionally done poem that you found somewhere. It shows that you have a great understanding of literature (or something like that) to be able to write this poem.”

Oh stop it you! You’re making me blush!

There was something validating about it. I hated the number 5, first because I felt the subject matter was unimportant, and second! I hated the formatting! I understand that it was designed to slow me down, but I still hate it!

So for a poem in my style, written in a way I would enjoy it, to be so thoroughly enjoyed… wow. It was also nice to have my personal writing be praised as well. In college, there’s not much room for free writing. There were opportunities, but not in regular classes. I understand why, this isn’t for fun the way it was in high school. So this was my only chance to show what I was made of.

My Professor did reach out to be in person in between classes. Again, saying that I had written a wonderful poem, that I evoke emotions instead of describing them. That I had skill in writing. I was glowing.

You must be thinking, “So that’s when you fell in love with poetry and started writing it, right?”

No.

There’s a second half to this story. By why don’t we save that for another time?