Week 1

Throughout the first week's readings in Making Your Own Days, I realized what many different things poetry ties together with. Like Koch stated in Chapter One, poetry is "a language within a language," meaning, when one takes poetry apart and thinks outside of the box they can utilize their knowledge to unravel the true meaning of that given poem. Moving further, in Chapter Two, which I found very interesting, it goes into great detail stating the different styles of poetry found in music, whether it be from the certain pauses or line breaks. After completely reading the chapter, I now looks for certain rhythms and repetition throughout the different music I often listen to.

Poetry has always sparked an interest to me, so I have found this class to be very enjoyable in the last week. The readings have been stimulating, especially in the chapter "Music," when Koch talks about the multiple different ways one can either listen to music and notice poetry words or phrases, or even visa versa. Currently, I am working on breaking down my poem and marking it in the correct way. It has been a slight struggle for me, noticing where exactly I need to mark the hard and soft parts of each word. Besides marking my current poem, I haven't come across any other complications.

I have learned that poetry can be very difficult to write, but also very easy at the same time. I've always thought of poetry as words that rhyme, but as I now know from the readings, that's not what poetry is about, unless the author chooses for it to do so. The more creative one is in their writings, the better hidden the true meaning of the musical words will be. What I've learned about inspiration is that poetry can come from anywhere or anyone, and the words chosen in poems can show deep meaning to him/her, or it could just be words written for fun. Overall, I am excited to expand my knowledge on poetry throughout the upcoming readings.