We talked a bit about “Geneseo Poetry” in class yesterday, and I’d like to push back against this.
I don’t think there is one type of poem that we, at Geneseo, consider good. I do, however, think that the workshops we participate in are fundamental to our development as writers, and that we do influence each other in workshop. I’ve seen a lot of this in my writing, specifically with the double colon (that we talked about in my poem last night) and creating compound words in our poems.
In my first poetry workshop at Geneseo, I was a sophomore, in a class with a lot of other sophomores, and a lot of seniors that I had heard reading during GREAT Day the year before, and that I looked up to as writing role models. Almost all of these seniors used a double colon in their poem at least once, and we even had a discussion one day where each of them described what it meant to them, and how they intended its use in their poetry, because a lot of us had never encountered it. Now, to me, the double colon has become just another sort of punctuation that I use really often, and has really helped me push my perspective on, and use of punctuation in poems. A few others from that class still use double colons in their writing, as well.
That doesn’t mean that Geneseo believed a double colon was inherently a good poetic choice, or that it made a poem better or worse, but it was definitely something I took away from that workshop and started using frequently in my writing.
I have noticed a lot of people creating compound words for poems in our workshops (sleepred, bedcreased, etc.) which is something that I hadn’t seen in my workshop two years ago, or in submissions while working with literary journals and organizations on campus these past few years. And now I keep wanting to do it in my poems!
But, again, this isn’t because I think that those techniques are good and necessary in poetry so much as I think that they’re an entirely new way to view words, and view craft, similar to how I felt about the double colon. It becomes another tool with which to create poetry and meaning.
Another thing to consider is the texts that we’re studying. The poetry collections that we read inspire us, and – at least in my case – shape how we view writing. I know that when I read a poem that works for me on any level, the first thing I want to do is try writing in that same style. It’s a helpful way for me to learn about the limits to which I can stretch my poetry, and a more effective way to get words down on paper.
I think, more than there being a definitive Geneseo style, the Geneseo poetry community is shaped by the current literary atmosphere just like we’re shaping each other. If we’re reading similar books, then doesn’t it make sense that we’re going to emanate similar stylistic choices as we explore our own creative voices?
The use of brackets and similar vocabulary that were both mentioned in class are possibly things that pop up in our writing often, but this is only because of what is present in contemporary literature, and what sort of things we’re exposed to.
There can’t be a Geneseo school of writing when the groups of people we’re working with, as well as the literary community around us, are constantly changing.