Through the Portfolio module of our class, I expanded the boundaries of my writing skills to work on a genre that I was not personally well versed in: Poetry. Through this experience with writing, revising, and peer editing, I can successfully say that I learned how to accept constructive criticism, be able to share my work, and how to edit correctly. 

My work consists of a different format of poem each time, using heavy figurative language and rhythmic elements. My chant poem uses the structure of short stanzas with a beginning word rhyme scheme. It is about the emotions evoked while being in a relationship and being in love and having that vision shattered from under you. The repetition of the phrase “you loved me” in the beginning doesn’t make the reader question the word “loved” with the intention of a twist at the end showing why the narrator used the past tense rather than present tense. My intended purpose was to have the audience relate to the complex emotions of love and heartbreak. I tailored my work to use words you would hear in love songs and heartbreak songs and experiences that many people could envision themselves being in. My haiku was about a woman in an arranged marriage chiding to be with her real love rather than what other people want her to do. Even though a runaway bride is not a universal experience, the feeling of being confined and having pressure on you to do something you do want to do is. I decided to take this message of taking your life into your own hands and depict it in this scenario where people can relate to the emotions as well as have a character to root for in the short amount of lines of a haiku. My alphabet poem is about when jealousy gets the better of someone and they act negatively because of it. It is meant to be dramatic and posed like a horror movie but readers can all relate to either character: being jealous that someone has what you want like in this case fame and success or being the person who is envied and having your close friends turn on you. The intended audience is anyone who can relate but I also believe celebrities and anyone in the limelight can relate to the feelings of being betrayed by someone you loved. My identity poem was hard to write but I tried to make it relatable and dig deep into who I am and how I feel. I used metaphors to express my emotions and invoke visual imagery. My list poem is a list about the activities I partake in during my favorite season: Summer. This was easy to write because I see summertime as a beautiful memory and film reel that I just took my experiences and easily wrote them down. This is a general poem because everyone has experienced summer but it mostly gears towards people who also enjoy summer. I tried to use colorful imagery to shine even if you read the poem in the winter. 

Meaningful insights I’ve gained from this phase is accepting criticism and having other eyes view and interpret my work differently. It was hard for me to share my work but now that I have and it has greatly improved my writing, I know it’s okay to mess up and have “shitty first drafts”. It’s better to start writing than doubt yourself and not write at all. It’s also good to practice writing in a module you never thought you’d need or use. The concepts that have most impacted my learning and writing processes were the revision process, peer feedback, and brainstorming in class. These all helped me because to be a good writer you need to go back and tweak your work to see what impacts the way you wanted it or not and brainstorming in class gives me the opportunity to think about topics I never thought about writing and advances my thought process and increases my ability to write about various topics.

 “Compose and develop writing created in class from prompt to publication, using the writing process by drafting, editing, revising, and publication, to achieve your best work.” This is the Course Learning Outcome that this phase’s assignment helped me achieve. When I created my alphabet poem in class, I honestly I thought it was my best work. The words flowed out of me and I thought I nailed the spooky theme and I was very happy with the first draft. I only made a few corrections after the initial draft and thought I didn’t need to touch it anymore. I submitted it to my group mates and when I got the peer letter, I was told it was my worst poem, it was confusing, jumbled, and the story wasn’t coherent to the reader. This was a good thing to hear because from the author’s perspective, the story was clear and evident but that was because I wrote it so obviously I understood what I was trying to say but my audience didn’t. I used this criticism to alter my poem, I kept my main story but I added a rhythm scheme so it flowed better and I removed lines that were confusing and tried to tell the story from beginning to end. This editing process from first draft, editing, feedback, revision, really helped me see the power of the first draft to finished publication and it’s not easy like you would expect but it’s worth it to produce your best work.