Britton, oh Britton. How you make my head spin!

After reading this article OVER AND OVER, I think I finally have my head wrapped around the content he was trying to convey.

Question.

How does poetic writing differ from expressive writing? I’m having a difficult time determining the difference. Would poetic writing reach more of an audience then expressive writing? What I get from this article is that expressive writing is more intimate. Poetic writing is written for its own sake. Would a love letter be expressive, or poetic? It seems to me that it would be poetic in the lovey-dovey poem sense, but in this literary sense, it must be expressive. I’m writing to a specific audience. It’s not meant for the greater population.  Now, how can we move from expressive to poetic and still keep the original meaning intact?

Visualize.

I visualize expression as a piece of writing geared for a particular audience, full of tone and emotion. I think of a piece written about a family reunion. Details of specific events and specific family members named by name. Probably details and information only a specific audience would understand. Inside jokes about grandpa, describing the change in the old farm, house, etc. Now, I visualize a poetic piece of writing about family reunions. It would be an overview of a typical family reunion. Nothing specific about specific people and places, but a general piece about family reunions.

Predict.

I predict that I will fail miserably upon trying to construct a poetic piece from my family reunion expression piece. J hehe. I suppose transitioning into a poetic piece would mean taking out the inside jokes and personal detail, and while stepping back, looking at the story as a spectator rather than as a participant.  I predict that I would have to write and rewrite several times, each time removing more of the personal details and make it more general.

Connect.

I feel like this article really connected myself to the text. I read this article and thought I had a decent understanding of it. Ha. Not even close. When it was time to, oh lets say, blog about it, I realize that I had nowhere near the understanding I thought I had. In the class activity of placing types of writing on the appropriate posters, I put things in the wrong category. After the group activity and presentations of each writing type, I feel I have a much better grasp on the information. :)

Respond.

Now that I have a better grasp, I think I would be better prepared to make an expressive piece of writing into a poetic piece. Yay! I'm gunna give it a shot....I'll let you know how it goes!