Poetry Journal Tour | ft. messy handwriting, pictures, and poems I sort of wrote

Posted on by evelyn

This year my homeschool co-op’s junior class includes a seminar on writing poetry. I’ve been adoring this one, though it’s hard to fit in poetry after working on chemistry and algebra and debate for hours each day.

At the beginning of the year we were told to bring two things to class: the book we’re using as a guide, and a empty, nice quality journal, small enough to carry around everywhere. Ever since then we have been filling it up (it’s filled up half way now??) and my phone is now full with pictures of its pages.

The first thing I did was print out an array of poems I like and put them in the journal.

Everyone Sang (or Armistace 1918) by Siegried Sassoon is a poem that never fails to chill me to the bone. My brothers sang a version of it in choir the semester I was not in it and I remember having goosebumps running up and down my arm the entire time (you can hear the song here though if you can hear a choir in person it’s 100% better.)

I’m a Nobody by Emily Dickenson is a favorite too and I had the perfect mushroom from my beloved shoe box of papers, clippings, etc. to pair with it.

"the purple grackle is a bird upholstered in dusty green velvet from a family of black birds. 
frozen for a second mouth cracked open with silent questions before it rips back the corn cob's 
mop of red stained hair and plucks the kernels away in tidy divisions and lines. when it takes
 flight the vegetable's bloodless carcass is bare to the world. each thin brown sleeve,
 a flaking epidermis. it does not sag as much but it will rot off soon."

Here you can see an exercise I did in which I was assigned to find a nature journal and pick a subject illustrated within to write vivid observations about. I chose the purple grackle from my 1945 edition of Birds of America and found a picture online I could print to put it alongside my description.

I loved the idea of including pictures, I decided to do more. I printed out a picture of the sun setting with the moon in the sky above over a highway of headlights… a picture I had recently taken and couldn’t stop looking at. Then I wrote a poem.

I cut up the picture and cut up a brown paper bag and played around with format until I was happy.

My tutor asked us to start keeping a poetry glossary for all the terms we are learning so this is what mine looks like. I used scrap paper and made the simple cover page. I typed the text with what was my great-grandfather’s typewriter and now my brother’s.

I’ve made quite a lot of black out poetry (it’s an easy go-to exercise and now I’m almost run out of my battered 50 cent copy of Emma). When I’m done I simply paste it on a spare page.

Unfortunately this one is so close to be worded perfectly, so I take the liberty of reading it with an added “to” as one does with blackout poetry.

so slight, so easy, so inexpensive, so obvious.
but i said to myself:
"what will become of my Soul?
if I had chosen to have torn you to pieces."

I ADORE these next two, needless to say. They’re amazing. (And I can say that because I technically didn’t write a single word in them, right…?)

Despite all the pictures of black out poetry and semi-polished poems, a lot of the journal is rough. Scribbles, notes, unfinished poems, a couple phrases, or clippings pasted in only for me to move on.

I’ve been spending the afternoons in my family’s living room and at a very specific time you can find small rainbows on the carpet and then watch them disappear and appear again on the walls. 

slender glass-scaled fishes
lay gleaming in quiet corners
vanish in the hour

And my friend and I found the Most Marvelous Twisted Tree™ and I took a picture, as one must, when they find a marvelously twisted tree. 

there was something ugly and evil
in his face
the fire was fed
getting sooty with the smoke.
imagined for the purpose - mysterious - 
to see with its eyes and warm hearts
in company with
art

Part of writing poetry is reading lots of it. I was looking up a specific sonnet online and instead found a sonnet generator (who knew there was such a thing??)

As a friend sagely narrated: “…and from that day on Evelyn wrote a sonnet every week for class.”

It turned out to be terrible in the most hilarious way.

I think my favorite lines are “Let me compare you to a murky spoon?/You are more busty, dusty, and crusty./Rough sun heats the fusty peaches of June.”

The auto praise was the best part. It cracked me up so much I had to take a screenshot.

Then I found a haiku generator and boom. Best. Poem. Ever.

refreshing autumn
a raw, bloated blowfish dies,
whilst watching the toad.
this is simply GOLD

Finally one last poem-related thing.

This picture I took from my favorite Shakespeare play last week makes me snicker every time.

It almost looks like modern poetry as it perfectly descends in stairsteps, but that the thought behind this format is actually poetical in it’s mechanics.

So I had to share that haha.

That said.

Expect much poetry shared in the future.

If you had a poetry journal, what would you include in it? Have you ever used a poetry generator? What was your experience? What are some of your favorite poems?

~ evelyn ~

p.s. if you like reading about poetry i have lots of posts in which i rant about it. i have more blackout poetry and i like to play around with words a lot, experimenting. i also have posted original poetry over the years.

Published by evelyn

heyo! my name is evelyn and i like things like stories, people, elephants, hot tea, chocolate, dancing in the rain and reading poetry out loud in the dark and also driving with the windows down and music up. i name my plants weird names.

56 thoughts on “Poetry Journal Tour | ft. messy handwriting, pictures, and poems I sort of wrote”

  2. The poetry generators… oh my word. Wow. Gold.
    And the auto praise. 🤣 I love how it puts Enid Kibbler in there with the negativity. And “I’ve always wanted to write a haiku about a blowfish. I can’t believe elephantine has beaten me to it.” And “Cristic.” 🤣
    That made my morning.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. Lovely poetry Evelyn! My favorite was the “weighted blanket” one. I also loved the geometric way that you arranged the sunset picture— that is so creative! And the poetry generator results were hysterical XD

    Liked by 2 people

  7. Your journal looks amazing!
    Also the poetry generator. I have never used such a thing, but WOW. Both poems are quite inspiring, but I think I like the haiku the best. The bit about the toad is the real clincher. And the praise is hilarious. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Aaah this was so aesthetically pleasing!!!! I especially adored that “weighted blanket” piece because WOW. It was so deep and ponderous and beautiful and meaningful and have I mentioned that you have such a delightful way of putting together random words and observations into something new and fresh?

    Aaand right when I was feeling all calm and soulful the poetry generators made me helplessly double over in laughter. Seriously those things are PURE GOLD. 😂 😂😂

    Like

  9. This is such a beautiful, aesthetic post. The first time I read it, I just went through and looked at all the pictures. It made my day. 😊

    I have a notebook that I’m filling with all my favorite poems, and now I want to add pictures…😄

    I just love this post. It feels so beautiful in a simple way.

    Oh, and just fyi, I love your poetry. ❤️❤️❤️

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Ahhh, this is lovely! I love the aesthetic feel of your journals and of course, the poetry is beautiful. I’m also inspired to make a poetry journal now, xDDD.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. i don’t know… it happens sometimes?? and other times doesn’t???
      i would write a guidebook to share with you but i don’t know what else i would say. either there’s too much to say or nothing

      so how
      we will wonder together i suppose

      Liked by 1 person

  20. Your Journal is so pretty!!! I love this and I kinda is making me want to start my own journal of poetry…. 🤔 I don’t know how your handwriting is so neat 😂. I loved reading this post!! ❤️❤️

    Liked by 1 person

  21. I know I’m so late but….THIS. Such an aesthetic and amazing journal (and post, and person). I’m seriously feeling so inspired. I just might be starting a poetry journal soon. ^.^ Evelyn, I seriously have another top favorite blog, please keep up the incredible work ❤ ❤

    Liked by 1 person

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