My Friend Stephen and Poetry

I have a friend name Stephen. He's a pretty cool guy, and lately he has been an awesome friend. A guy I talk to and joke around with sometimes, and a darn good improv duo as well. Well, he's a poet. Literally. He writes poetry and (I assume) receives compensation for such poetry. He was recently the featured poet on an online website that has great poetry on it. He also went to school as an English major and received his Bachelor's Degree. I think he majored in Creative Writing, correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyways, back on track.

Two weeks ago he was asking for people to review some of his poems before he submitted them in to magazines, websites and other poet submission places. I volunteered, thinking this would be a good way to sample his work without looking like a stalker googling his name, and I was quite pleased with what I read. He sent me four poems; "Art and Experience", "Chastity", "Grandpa Bradford" and "The Actor".

All great poems and mostly dark and somewhat depressing (I love dark and sarcastic writings). They all seemed rather odd to me as well. Now, I've always been told that I have a knack for the English language, That I'm a great (but rough) writer, and that I certainly have the imagination to write great literature. People always told me to major in English in college, but I never really felt like it was my thing. So, knowing the little tidbit, I didn't understand the structure of his poems. I always thought poetry was rhyming, story telling, and the typical Dr. Seuss kind of thing, that's what I grew up with thinking it was poetry (and still is to me). His poetry didn't rhyme, sometimes it did, but I'm not sure if it was on purpose or if it was my subconscious making it rhyme.

I think I understood the structure, 5 stanzas was all I really understood. If I'm correct, which I doubt, the point of those poems were more of a creative and dark sarcasm story, not really rhyming. This was a bit of a shocker and a little out of my poetic comfort zone of cats in hats and grinches.

I think I could understand it if I ask him to explain it, but one thing did happen (apart from obvious poetic structure confusion), I became poetic for last several days. I keep thinking in stanzas, looking for rhymes, thinking of metaphors and similes, and just thinking... poetically.

I will probably start putting up some more poems, I already have some stuff, but looking back, it looks and sounds cheesy. I like the creative stuff Stephen, but I don't want to emulate him completely. Just enough that I can add my own flavoring.

I want to quote one of his poems that I read to close this post; Here is a line or two from his poem "Art and Experience", enjoy.



“I didn’t know he had such a way with words.”
-- Stephen Bradford