a Poem in Response to Poetry Class

This is a rough draft. My professor wanted me to be more "nitty gritty" with my poetry and wanted them to be darker and more shocking; I wrote this as a way of disagreeing with this evaluation and also to give her what she wanted :) Enjoy!

Formaldehyde

The white page is carven

with pools and hesitant streams of

my lifeblood that pumps from

the desecration of my aortic valves.

Curious eyes of poetry professors glint with excitement;

the biology major opening the stiff cat

to find the prize of preserved kittens inside.

This paper is the formaldehyde 

Preserving my diction

That becomes

The stiffened legs of your specimen.

Your pen seeks out my story,

of a new mother raised in a crate

that just wanted the peace

of kittens at her teats.

Your pen scratches at my story,

Drawing blood,

And says that I should dwell in that cage

and kittens should not dictate

my mindset.

 It was my rough tongue and warm nose

That would greet my future.

My organs and veins

absent of life,

an exhibition of fascinating misery

and tortured solitude

is not an expression of who I was

am

and want to be.

A Lesson in Poetry for Those Without a Degree in Creative Writing

(Or those who are not currently finishing their Creative Writing degree)

When  readers of my work are those who know me personally or have met me, they tend to confuse certain poetical or fictional elements. Readers who know the author often place themselves within the work or take it on a personal level. Poetry especially needs to be broken down: there is an author, a speaker, and there are objects, situations, or persons that the poem is revolved around. Specifically, the author and the speaker within a poem needs to be seen for what they are: different and separate entities. The author is writing with a voice of someone, or something, in a certain situation. Poetry and fiction are about imagination. Unless those people or places are specifically named, using proper nouns, they are applicable to almost anything.

I know my mother often looks at my poems and exclaims, "Oh dear, that's about me". I may have gotten my ideas for a character from her, from someone else's mother, or from bits and pieces of different random people that I have encountered, or perhaps solely from the imagination. Even if the title says something like: "Ode to My Mother," I could be taking the view of someone else writing to their mother - an egg hatching, for instance; or perhaps even a poem addressing its "mother"which is a pen. These are just examples, but apply to practically all poetry or fiction. Edgar Allen Poe did not, in fact, kill his neighbor and hear the dead heart beating under the floorboards; Poe is the author, the speaker committed murder.

I apologize for this little rant, but hopefully this helped some people who were very confused or perhaps just did not take a poetry class. 

the Companion

I find myself

Lost

On a dirt path

In the middle of

Nowhere

I turn round

And round

No house

Human

Animal

In sight

Sinking down

I wrap arms around my knees

And make

Pleas of desperation

Devastation

Anger

At myself

Then

Sweet warmth at my back

Gentle arms wrap

About my waist

A whisper in my ear

“it’s okay, I am here”.

The Shallow Well of a Pasture Somewhere

Soft
cool
earth
warms underfoot
and swirls between my toes.
I only want the grass
the wet
strands
that sometimes cut
the creases of my skin.

I will
dig
deep
and
deeper
until I am surrounded;
all sides rising above me
in dark security.
Roots entrap my ankles
and hold me
tightly to
Mother's breast.