Creative Sanctuary

Poetry has become an idolizing and influential concept in America for the past fifty years. The centuries of poetry dating back to the Elizabethan era had created an idea of writing and expression that moved its way to America for American Transcendentalists to create and move their thoughts to paper. Many poets of our modern era developed strongly in the 1950’s and the 1960’s. These poets wrote on civil rights, freedom, liberty, and peace because these times included war and new movements that cascaded throughout this time period. This was our peak when it came to poetry, but, as the decades have gone by, we’ve picked up on many new concepts and individualities of the different types poetry that have been developed to this day. Most people
Creative Sanctuary was a tiny building that offered a place for local bands and poets to come together and express their feelings and messages to the world. Creative Sanctuary allowed local poetry and paintings to cover every bit of wall and ceiling in their little plaza area of the building in Alexandria. I would spend time in between songs reading the walls, trying to understand the messages a poet wanted to get across. The idea that poets and artists were allowed to just put what they wanted anywhere on the walls became clearer when I attended their poetry out loud sessions on Sundays. I never truly participated, but I tried to play as an attentive audience member by giving them feedback afterwards. I met this man named Parker Pickett at one of Creative Sanctuary’s night shows. I learned quite a bit about poetry from Parker when I had only known him for a couple of hours! He, being an author of published poetry, tried to give me an understanding on what poetry does. Parker told me that if it weren’t for the rough times in his life he wouldn’t have found poetry and made it become a part of him. He gave me advice by telling me not to do exactly what I was trying to do all this summer: overanalyze the poetry at hand. This idea of just listening and feeling the words of the poet caused me to step back and take a
So, I tried to write what would be a combination of free verse and a little bit of rhyme. I created stanzas based on the way my poem moved when spoken. When writing my poem, the biggest issue was that I could start twenty different poems, but I couldn’t finish one no matter how hard I tried. There were so many different themes I could write on, but finding the words was like pulling taffy. After thirty minutes of frustration, I took a break. I didn’t end up starting the poem again until it was the end of the week because I had hit a low point in my life. I felt like everything around me was slowly going downhill. My parents were always fighting over something as well as drinking for some good reason. School absorbed any drama that sat in its path, and, of course I had to put up with it. After experiencing a bad night, I finally finished the poem. I was so proud of my poem that I decided I would show the two people who I trust more so than anyone. Mind you, I was very proud but sensitive of my poem therefore, I would only show the two best poetry experts I knew. I showed the poem to only one of them first and I was so excited when I sent it, but my excitement completely dispersed when I read the oncoming messages that bashed my happiness like oncoming traffic. He criticized my stanza creation and pointed out things in such a small poem that I didn’t even know could be criticized. This led