In the poem “A Poet’s Poem,” the poet Brenda Shaughnessy explores the thought that writing a poem is not always easy. You're always looking for what to add or what to remove from the poem, making yourself overthink. It can get frustrating to try to write a poem and Brenda Shaughnessy expresses that in this poem.
In stanza number 2 she says “I put it in the first line, then moved it to the second, and now it wont come out” showing how much she is struggling with writing a poem. She shows that one word could either make or break the poem and figuring out which of those it will do is stressful and frustrating. She also uses imagery in stanza number 3 line 6, saying “So I went out my little porch all covered in snow.” She says this after expressing once more how frustrated she is from trying to write the poem. She uses that imagery for us to picture what she is doing or how she is calming herself down and taking a break from the poem by going outside.
Throughout the poem there are many words that make you easily realize that the theme of this poem is ironically the fact that writing a poem isn't easy. Words and phrases like “if it takes me all day”, “I'm stuck. I’m so frustrated,” and “ I can't stand myself” show how much she struggles just like many other people do too. Although the poem is short, it is long enough for you to catch on to what the theme is, which is that writing a poem isn't easy.
I got inspired to write this essay because I have been struggling with breaking down, editing, and writing poems my whole life. I always hated poems because of how bad I was to work with them, it made me think that I was the only one who struggled this much. After reading this poem about how hard it is to write a poem it made me feel better about it because I actually found a poet who admitted that it is never easy to write one.
I actually have a personal connection to this Literary Interpretation by Brandon as I was trying to write my poem "My Morning" Not only did I feel like I was throwing the whole poem away just by adding one word but it didn't feel right. I like the way the author Brandon was inspired by another poem to write this piece, The detail he includes about the poem such as the stanzas is also really good.
--Erick Reynosa
While reading your piece I could imagine very well what you were talking about due to the parts of the poem you added. I think by adding evidence you expressed everything correctly.
--Jessica Torres