Response to a classmate’s journal, Week 2

From Zac Cooper's journal:

Throughout the course of my writing this week I have tried to employ some of the notions we have been discussing in class. One of these notions that stuck out for me was the technique of using words within a poem for their sound and/or connotation instead of their meaning. While I grasped this idea in our class discussions and can observe it in other writers' poems, as a first time creative writer I was having trouble using the technique in meaningful ways in my own writing. However, I feel that while completing the Improv/Imitation entry for this week I had an epiphany of sorts with the technique.
Even though this entry was an imitation of another's work, I went through several drafts of my poetic attempt. As I continuously changed words and searched for synonyms I noticed that I was choosing words based on their sound alone. I didn't mean to, but I definitely started doing it somewhere along the line. After I noticed this technique taking place I went back and analyzed what I was choosing and why. I realized that there were two specific sounds I enjoyed using in that particular poem (which I titled Weekly Relic). Those sounds were the soft, conciliatory "s" and the hard, sharp "k" sounds. So, I decided to use and contrast those sounds within the poem and the title. Now, by no means am I singing any form of praises of this poem or claiming to have broken through a milestone in the art. However, I am saying that for me, a person who has never looked in the mirror and seen a creative writer, it was fun.

I understand a lot of where Zac is coming from and I was struggling with the same felings. During the imatation process, I find myself trying to emulate the poem's style with some kind of idea. I'm still working on my imatation this week, because I can't find the right balance. Zac's comments on creative writing are telling for us that don't consider ourselves creative writers. I feel that many of the ideas in this class will help us come to grips with the notion that everyone can write if they spend enough time working through those different exercises to help us come up with intersting items in our poetry.