When Poetry was About a Burrito

    The word "nostalgia" comes to mind when I think about poetry. During 5th grade, I somehow won a poetry award for writing about a burrito. I know it sounds crazy, but the ridiculous story of myself creating a burrito that comes to life and begs me to spare it and become my pet actually won me an award and got my poem published in an online book. I still remember the shock and disbelief I had because I was completely unaware that there was an award. It all happened so fast - on one day I was handing in my hard copy of my poem to my English teacher as an assignment and a few days later, I was typing up my silly burrito poem online so my teacher could send it to get published.



    That was over 7 years ago, but I still remember how fun poetry was. Creativity was encouraged, rules were limited, and my imagination was working its magic. I'm don't remember clearly how I came up with the crazy burrito story of mine, but I'm almost sure my idea came from the fact that I was dreaming about live, inanimate objects with emotions during my sleep the day before. Whether the idea really stemmed from my dreams or not, I was having so much fun with my imagination during the process.



    But somewhere along the way (probably around COVID), poetry stopped feeling the way it did. Symbols, allusions, and words I've never quite understood started making complications that reduced the clarity I was able to see in poems before.  Whenever I look at the MCQ poems for instance, I can't help but think to myself that all the answer choices are correct. What makes one choice better than the other? I guess that is one reason why I resist poetry now, because I feel like poetry has transitioned from the expression of imagination to proving that I can find the only "right" meaning.



    That's why poetry brings this sense of nostalgia to me because I miss the times where poetry didn't have to be profound with all the symbols, and deceptive meanings - it just had to be me and my imagination.


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