Similarities and differences between writing about poetry and writing it

Sorry this came really late. I mistakenly thought this was due on the 13th. My bad. Better late than never.

Writing poetry is something personal, in my humble opinion. I don't think anybody can write a poem as discretely as they can. Maybe they do. But the only time I could ever let go of my personal biases by writing a poem was the first time I wrote a poem because I never understood it completely. I was 16 years old. My English teacher used his signing hands hoping that we would understand poetry. So, I tried making sense of the poem by only focusing on the words from the dictionary. All he wanted for us to do is make a story out of it. I was just too busy focusing on the words trying to figure out if it was making any sense to my classmates then turn it in. I never really connected to it, however.

As soon as I grew older, I realize the benefits of poetry after my cat died. Funny it might sound, but it hit me on the spot where I had to scratch that itch. It bugged the hell out of me. So, I wrote my very first poem, spontaneously, filling the paper with my emotions. Ever since, and every time I lay my pen on a paper, it's a "connection" ready to be made. This is why I said it's something personal.

Writing about it, on the other hand, forces me to remove my personal biases and lenses. It's a bit of a challenge because I'm automatically assuming what's in between the lines. We can't always assume why the poet wrote his or her piece. What's more important is we have the tools to deconstruct the poem to make an educated guess about what really is going on behind the writing. For instance, how can I ask George Meredith why in the world did he wrote "Lucifer in Starlight"? Even if he was alive, he might say, "It's how you look at it as. Whatever floats your boat." This is something we probably mostly hate, but at the same time, I think this is what we should cherish the most because we'd look like jackasses for making a wrong assumption if the poet says, "Wrong, it's about...." This is why in today's world, we rely heavily on the tools of poetry to do some analysis to talk about it with other people. And this is why defamiliarization, to me, is important... this means we must keep an open mind.