What do you wish you'd learned at school about poetry?

[rayheinrich]

Creative writing classes tap into something different than math.
People can discover parts of themselves when they begin to write
and a dedicated writing teacher can really help students who are
struggling in their lives.

And I could say:
"Math classes tap into something different than creative writing classes.
People can discover parts of themselves when they study math and a
dedicated math teacher can really help students who are struggling in
their lives."

Math was like that for me. Salvation comes in many forms (and from
all directions ).

Too much information zone:
Mathematicians are five times more likely than average to play a
musical instrument. Math and music share common roots. Math and
poetry, especially the more systematic forms, do as well.
(Mathematicians must love villanelles ). And they all contain
structures that are parallel to the other's: complex rhythms,
chains of meaning, idiom, metaphor, self-reference, rhyme schemes,
symbolism, parallel structures (ha, yes, recursion), and zillions
more.

---

... but sometimes there's just nothing you can replace a fuck with.

Being able to say 'fuck' in a poem, often precludes the need for it.

Old saying:
A fuck can replace anything, but nothing can replace a fuck.

New saying:
'Fuck' doesn't mean 'fuck' so much as it means 'freedom'.

---

i came back to this post.
in these times when god is dead
and
but now we live in times of scientific bleakness
aren't both of those phrases horseshit?

Why yes, yes they are.

I especially loathe "in times of scientific bleakness".
In my experience, "bleakness" is rarely scientific, mathematical,
or methodical; but experimental, yes, that it is quite often.