Poetry, Burroway

I found that Burroway's chapter on poetry was really helpful. I always enjoy reading poetry but have never considered myself capable to write poetry. After learning so much about ways to improve my creative writing, I still can't grasp the idea that I can do the same with the poetry I'll have to write; it seems like a concept that would only come naturally and seem fake and insincere if I did not have that type of natural ability to write poetry, which I don't. Burroway's light touch on poetic voice, coubleness, and poetic action were aspects of writing poetry that I had never considered because I am so used to reading and analyzing poetry rather than writing. An obvious concept in creative writing is that as a writer, you must think of how you want your work to come across to you audience. That concept does not really click with me when considering why I would want to write poetry, but there are definitely other ways to think about figurative language and crafts of writing when writing poetry that don't come to mind when you read poetry. Burroway does a great way of explaining that in poetry, as a poet, you cannot be selfish with your work. Indirectly she explains this with her in-depth descriptions of ways to improve your work. Poetry is something that is shared with others, like writing, and what I think will help me when I must write poetry is the idea that I have to think about others when writing, not entirely, but in the sense that although poetry has very few guidelines, there are still rules to follow. Burroway even describes free verse as not being free at all. You can be abstract with your ideas when writing poetry, but there still must be a beginning, middle, and end, and an overall purpose to your poem. If not, you have not achieved what is considered to be a good poem. With an abstract or even simple idea, your actual writing must still be structured whether you are writing formal or free-verrse poetry. Like all other forms of creative writing, you must have an underlying message, the only difference with poetry, in my opinion, is that your craft of writing differs than it would if say you were writing a novel in order to get that message across. Burroway explains these crafts of writings spot-on in her chapter.