Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views On The Writer's Vocation

Why do some writers choose poetry instead of fiction or autobiography when writing about their experiences? What can poetry offer an artist that other genres might not?

Poems are just another way to voice the opinions that the authors have. You will find poems that have point of view of soldiers from both side describing events that happened on the battlefield or you have poems that voice the hurt that the union felt when the south secced. You also find poems that talk of loss and sorrow

A poet purposefully chooses the style they want to present their work in, which can impact a reader's interpretations of it. Either way a poem’s main purpose is to make the reader feel and reflect on the poem and on themselves. Although all poetry shares the same purpose, this does not diminish the impact their stylistic differences may have. The difference between a prose and lyric may impact the reader interpretations.

A poem is an experience, not a thought. It is an experience both the author and the reader share with one another. Authors of poems use tones, keywords, hidden messages, irony, and diction to create their work. They use these tactics so the reader thinks about what they are reading and try evaluating what the message is that the reader wants to get across. In the poem “Snow” by Louis MacNeice, he uses these same characteristics to get the readers mind active in the words. Let’s examine the poem “Snow” and see what the meaning behind this poem is.

Writing poetry is very stimulating if it is something people enjoy doing. Some writers do not have to think about what they want to write it just comes to mind. Most authors write about their life and what influenced them to write or become writers. Writers are physically, mentally, and emotionally ready to take on the task of writing. Such as writing poems, short stories, or novels. Some writers write about the good and some write about the bad; some even write about the good and the bad combined. Authors write to express themselves. Some authors write about what they have been through or what they have experienced in their life time. Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote in the modernist era and wrote mainly about

Terry Tempest Williams achieves her purpose in “Why I Write” by composing a love letter to “writing” about how writing can help you cope with life. The author gives a precise summary about why she writes. It seems to be random thoughts, but she has a point to the madness as the reader has to analyze the text more deeply to understand what Williams means. Williams uses this piece to describe a climatic read about why the author feels the need to express herself in this way. However, why would someone write a love letter to writing, or any other art form? For Williams, this is a way of showing her talent as a writer and as an advocate for writing as a profession. Williams does this through her vivid metaphors that push the audience to

So why exactly do authors use poetry? Well, the use of poetry provides many different positive effects to the audience. Right off the bat when a reader who enjoys poetry opens up a book and sees a poem, they are already drawn in and wanting to read. However, not every reader feels this way about poetry but, regardless of your view about it, one thing is for sure, it is much quicker and easier to read. There are no extra filler words when reading poetry, it is simple, quick and to the point. In the poem “In the Depths of the Summer pond” it beings with “Here hang the algae, green and small, in the depths of the summer pond” (Sidman) in such a short amount of words, enough detail is provided for a reader to paint a picture in their minds and begin making connections as soon as they start to read. It is also detailed enough to for a reader to start to learn something new and to understand the topic and what is being taught. This is because they are able to associate what is being said with the images that the poem is being surrounded by and even the images that they create in their minds. More simply put, poetry brings in a new way of thinking and learning as well as a new perspective. It can also represent information in a new way to the reader that is not expected and that alone can be enough to draw in and catch the attention of someone. It allows you to interpret things on your own and make connections to your own life. That can almost always make something more memorable for a

Beep! Beep! Beep! I wake up to an alarm screaming in my ear. I smack the alarm to shut the yelling off. It was a January day, in the middle of the cold, brutal winter. I finally got up after sitting in bed for what felt like hours, and looked outside like I do every morning. I noticed that there was no sign of grass to be seen. All that could be seen was white, frozen blanket of thick snow. I started to get ready for the school day and I just prayed that school was going to be canceled. As soon as I was fully ready I stepped outside and my food sunk down a foot and a half below the snow! I could not believe it that school was still open. As soon as I got to my car that was completely covered in snow, my mother comes out and yells that school was closed. I felt a huge wave as release and I ran back inside and went right back to sleep.

Poetry is my passion and I can't imagine my life without it. It all started in 10th grade when I started writing and found what I was good at. I found this a way of using my creative, vibrant voice, and emotions with the world in which I lived made me feel alive. Through poetry, I could comfortably express myself. Metaphor, language, meaning, word choice, emotions, similes, rhyme scheme, and structure, molded together, made my poems. I'd hold a pencil in my hand, landing on each line of the stanza, making sure I was writing bigger than myself. One of the poems I wrote was so meaningful to me because being overweight was something I've been struggling with till this day. My poem was called: "Society Craves Perfection".

I write because it's the one thing that's by me for me because of me. Writing is like my alter ego. It comes from my imagination, it grows with my imagination, it experiences my heartaches and my losses. It thrives with me through the good and the bad. And it matures through and with me as come into myself and the person who I want to be. It is my emotion, my pain, my happiness, my embarrassment, my love, my feelings each and every one of them wrapped up into this phrase, this stanza, this paragraph, this paper, and it might not be everything but it is a part of it. Everything I experience, everything I touch, taste, smell, feel inside and out, it experiences it with me so then in a way my writing knows me better than anyone else should because

If she wasn’t in the snow, she knew her hands would still be shaking, she had to win. As the pistol was fired up the air, she pushed off with her poles and shot onto the groomed track. The sharp rush of wind pierced her skin like a thousand sharp knives as she bolted down the slope with her ski. Her trophy cabinet was prepared to invite the new glimmering piece of appreciation that she was sure to get her hands on. Crowds were cheering behind the fences, all pushing each other to get to the front and see the action. The grassy mountain in the summer with daisies and buttercups was now covered in snow. Elbowing her competitors she tried to push and make her way to the front. Unfortunately she just wasn’t quick enough, the others zoomed off and

Poetry also helps me see the world in a different point of view. For example, in Harlem I got to better understand the struggle that the African American community. Even though I will never know how hard those times were, it gives me more appreciation for who and what I have in my life. Reading poems also helps me deal with my problems. I have used poetry to help with my problems just recently when I got a bad grade. After I got the test back, I immediately remembered the poem Invictus, and how the narrator still had courage even though many bad things

On a snowy and windy night, I was at Barnes & Noble in Green Bay with my friends, Alan and Karina. Christmas music played overhead, the smell of hot chocolate and freshly brewed coffee wafted over, the customers were kind and cheerful, and snow was beginning to blanket the parking lot outside. We were sitting near the cafe wrapping books to support their mom’s school fundraiser. I stared outside and remembered my mom’s warning of the large snowfall that was almost upon us. Around 7:15, the snowflakes were becoming larger and we could barely see outside the window.

The Snows of Yesteryear is a series of portraits of Gregor von Rezzori’s family, including two of his significant nurses and their lives during the two World Wars and the time in between. His home city of Czernowitz was caught in the aftermath of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s fall when it was continually handed over between Romanian, German, and Russian rule. Rezzori’s autobiography gives an in depth look into his family—materially privileged but emotionally fractured—with each chapter focusing on a person who was essential to his journey into manhood. Rezzori draws parallels throughout the novel of the dissipation of the empire—pre- and post-World War I—and the disintegration of the family. In comparison to Rezzori, Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday is more successful in portraying the grievance of losing his homeland, Austria.

If you asked me why I write I would say because I need to. For most students this is the case, we write because it is required for school. Throughout high school we were taught to focus on spelling, grammar, and structure but when we need to create a piece of academic writing it can make the process more challenging if we rely only on these. There are other strategies which weren’t taught as early in our education though, such as word choice, simplicity, revision, and finding our angle, which can vastly improve our writing. We tend to focus on these strategies in the order in which they were taught, but to effectively write academic papers we need to use the strategies we are less familiar with.