Abstract

The topic I wrote about is the reason I started writing poems, along with the significance it had on society. The reason I picked that moment is because I still look back to that moment and smile. It was the thing that motivated me to start writing and changed who I am. The purpose of my narrative is to show how poetry impacted and change my perspective of writing. The way I achieved this was through mentioning my dislike for writing when I was younger. I had started off my narrative talking about how I didn’t like writing because it helped further the idea and concept of how my perspective changed. Throughout my narrative I tried to display my own personal development showing that change. Another thing that played a key role my narrative is my audience. I wanted to tell it in a way that showed I was having a personal conversation with the reader. So, I told my story in an informal way to achieve that. This assignment helped me reflect back on how language plays a role in our life a development. 

Poetz

Yo, now ever since I was young, had a gift with the tongue, this shit might open the door (It might open the do’) ~ Isaiah Rashad 

Growing up writing hasn’t always been my specialty. As a kid I hated it. I hated going to school. I hated everything that involved me doing anything related to academic work. That mentality soon led me to not even want to try and to push myself to do better academically in school, but on the other side, the creative side, I was the king. When it came down to doing anything involving imagination, drawing, or even playing with toys I wouldn’t hesitate to try my best. I guess I found that doing any creative work as less of an assignment and more of something fun to do. As a kid that was the gift I had. I never truly saw how I could mix my love (my creativity) that made me feel like royalty with the academic work I hated. 

That hatred led me to not doing well academically. Let’s just say from elementary school up until my final year of middle school, I almost never did too well with writing any essays or any research paper. I mean I had gotten better but not well enough for my writing to be good or have a major improvement. It also didn’t help the fact that my handwriting looked like chicken scratch or Egyptian Hieroglyphics. None the less I did improve in some ways. It wasn’t until High School that my writing would change for the better when I meet a young poet. 

“Ran through these thoughts, ran through these hearts, I was in the dark till I caught a spark, Feel like I’m on fire”~6lack 

Unlike most, I can say that high school was a great time for me. It helped me discover who I was along with a new way to express myself. It all started with one interaction. It was the first day of school and I had an earth science class. That’s where I meant a young poet named Izzy. We started talking because one of my friends from elementary had a crush on him; thought he was “cute and all dat.” I mean she was freshman like me, but the girl was ready to shoot her shot. Well, the next couple of weeks we were basically me and him talking about that and the classwork. After finishing our lab work one day, we got into the topic of life and start talking about life, music, rap, people, death. It was an entertaining conversation.  

After a few discussions about the way we thought, we discovered how much similarities we shared like how sensitive we both were and how we both had an open mind about life.  

He asked me “You into art and reading?”  

I respond with “Yah” even though I was lying and trying to act cool.  

 He then pulled out a distressed black composition notebook and showed me a bunch of poems he wrote. do you remember any of them? Even a few lines would work here. I liked them because I connected to them on an emotional level.  

I told him that “Bro your writing is some dope ass shit.” 

 He told me “thanks, man. You ever tried writing poems yourself?”.   

I responded with, “Naw man never did. Writing isn’t one of my strengths.”  

He laughed it off and said “He said well try maybe you’ll like it. I can see you liking it a lot and getting into it.”  

  Later that day I started writing poetry. My first poem was garbage. To give you a mental image of what it looked and sound like: think of a garbage bag inside of a trash can, inside of garbage truck; everything missed spelled labeled as Monty’s first poem. It was so bad, but it was just the start. Looking back, I realized that Izzy saw potential in me that I didn’t see it myself.  

Izzy sort of became like a big brother to me. We established that it wasn’t a formal learning experience. It was more of us teaching one other. He taught me a lot deep level thinking and few things about art itself. I taught him science since our fake British that smelt like Newports didn’t want to teach the class. The most memorable moment was when he was having girl trouble and I was just in my first relationship. I was just a young in love brother that didn’t know how to say how he felt towards a girl he connected with. He helped me out by telling me to write all my feelings and use them to write a poem. As I was doing it, he explained his difficulty with his relationship. He had lied and cheated on his girl. I found that hard to believe but it was true, an artist needs a troubled past to write right. That day I also found out how you can put your pain into your work. He gave me pointers such as how to phrase my words. He said compared to something that reminded me of her. I would later write and compare my ex-girlfriend to flowers how she’s delicate with a soft touch and have beautiful smell. by the time I was done, I had a nice sweet lovey poem to my newfound loved. We broke up a year later. But Izzy and I still stayed in contact. I still show him some of my new poems I wrote. He helped me shape my future. 

“On your lonely nights this mic will be your friend, You tell it all your secrets that you keepin‘ deep within, Your fantasies, regrets, your happy moments and your sins”~J.cole 

We all been to that dark place in our lives. When we don’t know what to do, when we feel so low that we can’t get up and that something is just pushing us down every time. Poetry helped me maintain a stable set of minds. Poetry was able to help me turn my pain into art. It wasn’t just the pain alone; I put all my emotions into my writing the love and joy in my life.  The hatred I had for my past. Even my addiction to toxic life choices and people are my favorite ones. I was even able to get one of my poems in a book. I still have the book as a reminder of how far I’ve come. From opening myself up to writing poetry, not only did my skills get better, but I got better expressing myself. Any other writing outside of me doing poems got better as well. I was able to express myself more with writing and finally able to use my creative mind for writing to the point where I knew anything, I wrote could be good I mean, the ideas I have because I still look chicken scratch. That part of me still haven’t changed. 

I noticed that the effect poems have on society is that it allows people to express themselves. It allows people to let out emotions that they can speak upon. The pain they felt from a bad relationship or the joy of new opportunities in life. Poems have a much deeper sense that not a lot of people can understand but they can feel it. They feel the emotions and ideas of the creator. The way poems have changed my view is that it opened my mind to a lot of new concepts or ideas that I wasn’t really paying attention to or preserving before.