Poetry Workshop: A Good Experience

The poetry workshop was definitely a fully rewarding experience for me. Since I consider myself more of a prose writer than a poet I wasn't especially looking forward to the poetry section in this class at first. When the theoretical part and the writing of my own poems went surprisingly well, I got curious about the workshop, mostly because I had never done a workshop before and wasn't sure what to expect.

It was definitely not easy for me to read my own poem in front of the whole class. It is one thing to hand it out to everybody and read the written comments a week later, but sitting down and reading out loud a poem not written in my mother tongue, knowing that I had all the attention focused on me, really made me feel uncomfortable. My tendency to include a lot of personal experience and feelings in my writing didn't exactly help.

The 20 minutes of close attention dedicated to my poem turned out to be very helpful. After the hardest part, the reading, was over, I was really amazed by the comments of my fellow students who really seemed to have gotten into the poem with honest curiosity. The comments were mostly helpful and I think I was able to improve my poem considerably because of them.

The workshop was a unique opportunity and a privilege and I am happy I was able to participate in it. I am convinced the workshop will have an impact on my future writings in poetry and in prose. I got a new feeling for the importance of revision and self-criticism and think that I can improve a lot of my works by being more critical in the future. It was no easy lesson to learn, but definitely a rewarding one.