meraki

Introduction

I got into poetry my junior year. My AP Lang teacher started the school year by giving us a book—"The Trouble with Poetry" by Billy Collins. For homework each night, we were to annotate a poem and then either write down a rhetorical analysis using those annotations, or pick a line from the poem that stood out to us and use that as a template or a starting line for writing our own. "Put pen to paper and don't stop, let all your thoughts flow onto paper" is what she would say. As pathetic as it sounds, homework was fun. Dissecting the writers' words, trying to decipher their thoughts, and then trying to form my own into art was an amazing feeling. It was assigned work, put I still put little bit of myself into it if that makes any sense. And now that school is over, I miss that feeling, I miss that type of thinking. So I decided to make this. This outlet that many writers use this app for—to express themselves and connect with people who can relate or appreciate their work. That all being said, please bare with me as I try to transform the complexities of my mind into somewhat simpler and comprehendible words. (Some of the poems on here will be from those previously mentioned assignments. The line and the poem it derived from will be acknowledged.)

— Yours truly....Marline Jean-Marie