Everything was like a fast forward. The class started and ended so fast. There are many good things that happened in Poetry II class. The basics are left in poetry I and at the start of the semester we all became ready for a higher level of criticism and praises.

When the class started with a report about a chosen poet, everyone became excited to know about their lives looking at the possible things that would happen to us if we really stick to poetry.

Even though we are to criticize each other in class, we really try not to hurt each other’s feelings. I believe that our class is successful in this part. In class we are required to pass fifteen poems with different topics, there should be a water poem, fire poem, earth poem, air poem, night, happy death, sports, end of love, god, angry child, painting, sculpture, intertext, and poems with allusion. Among the entire required poem, I really had a hard time making the intertext and poem with allusion. I could not fully understand the requirement for these poems.

My water poem was first entitled Before the Destination . There the speaker is thankful for the things that keep her lover alive. The setting was inside a car. After the workshop, it was commented that the title was not good and that the first stanza is already enough to sustain the poem. It also changed the word enter into put as it was the appropriate word. At first, it was like this:

Before the Destination

Water poem- free verse

As you enter the keys in the ignition

After the revision, it looked like this:

In the Car

Water poem- free verse

As you put the keys in the ignition

The topic for the next poem is about fire, The Prey has its awkward parts so I decided to omit the last part after editing some awkward lines and some typographical error. My earth poem The Glitzy Paper Plane undergone a little editing because as what my classmate in the workshop said, it was simple and its simplicity made it successful. Last Night’s Awakening, my night poem is only a recycled poem from Poetry I. I edited and shaped it again to suit the night poem. It was a Shakespearean sonnet and it has some grammatical error. When it comes to metered poem, it would be hard to change a word because it could affect the meter.

My happy poem, talks about birds and a speaker relating to their freedom. I edited some grammatical error and typographical error in it. I had a hard time writing a death poem because the last time someone in my family died, I was still a child. I still passed a death poem; it was my tribute to Francis M, a great Filipino artist. Even though the superstar in the poem is a female, it was still about him.

My sports poem about archery is something that comes from my experience, the first version of the poem has its awkward lines and maybe it was because of my spontaneous feelings for the topic.

My end of love poem entitled Poseidon’s Daughter had a big problem in its awkward lines and punctuations. I retained the title because I later discovered that it could remind the readers of the goddess Venus. My poem first look like this:

Poseidon’s Daughter

End of Love- Italian Sonnet

Your swimming in the pool with gracefulness,

You look like one of Poseidon’s daughter,

After revision, one could see that at almost every line something changed :

Poseidon’s Daughter

End of Love- Italian Sonnet

Watching you swim causes my happiness

I think, you look like Poseidon’s daughter,

My god poem was about a rape victim about to commit suicide. From its original title Traumatic Past, I changed it to A Note. I believe that this title is more appropriate as the poem looks like a suicide note. My poem A Young Slave to His Master did not undergo a major revision, along with Daughter to Mother, Coward King of Beast and Justicia.

My poem entitled A Scream looks like this on its last six lines:

The nature screams at me

Then

I saw this work by Munch

It makes me more depressed,

I cried and screamed,

And shrieked some more.

I added some new elements from nature to prove that nature screams at the speaker. I also had the poem cut to make it a two- stanza poem. However, I retained some lines because I believe that they would still be effective:

Nature screams at me.

The sound of the

Waves in the ocean

Impairs my ears.

Then,

I saw this work by Munch

It depresses me more.

So I cried, screamed,

And shrieked some more.

The improvement of my poems depends on the comments done by the teacher and classmate. My choices in who would I follow or believe in would also matter, however, the experience in class wherein I had fun while improving my skill was incomparable to the grade that I would get after the semester. I have always looked forward to every class in Poetry because I know that I would learn something new again and I have my classmates who criticize my poems in a soft manner. I felt so fortunate to belong in my poetry class because a graduate of this course mentioned before that even until now, the fights and insults they had in poetry still remained in their minds.

“I really enjoyed my poetry class”, this would be what I’m going to say to the lower years or to people who would ask me about it.

In the Car

Water poem- free verse

As you put the keys in the ignition

My knees trembles at the sight of your pills,

Above the stereo, next to the steering wheel.

I wish I can be like the mineral

In the bottled water you just finished drinking,

The insulin injected in your body,

The organic food in your diet,

Or even the rain that makes you smile.

Wherever we may be leading,

I can never thank those things enough

For providing that joy in you now.

The Prey

Fire Poem- free verse

The wailing siren of the fire truck

And the thumping boots of the firemen,

Along with the sound of splashing water

To save anything occurred to me in a snap.

The thick and gray smoke rose from everywhere

And the flame looked like a lion

With a bright orange fur

Attacking its prey.

The prey is the home I have tried

To create for a long time.

The Glitzy Paper Plane

Earth Poem- free verse

I have designed a glossy paper

To fly in the skies one afternoon.

But it just went from air to earth.

The paper crushed in the mud,

Not in the trees nor in the bushes

Where it could be spotless.

Glossy paper-

Once glitzy, now soiled

About to go into the trash

And about to descent to earth.