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I have always been told that I am an extremely competant writer. Unfortunately, the general belief seeming to be that constructive criticism does not exist and that anything other than complimentary words are a direct shot at the honor of the recipient, I have no way to verify this that satisfies my inherent insecurity in my own talents. I would like to think that some day I will polish my skills as a writer to a degree so as to be capable of making a tangible impact in the literary world. I understand, however, that this is an improbable and rather narcissistic fantasy. My faith in my own writing is shaken by the discovery in earlier works of inexcusable clichˇs or seemingly infinite repetitions of rapidly-tiring epithets. But then, it is said that criticism of one's own work is the strongest indicator of improvement; less intellectually, it is also said that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Another oft-quoted proverb applicable to my case would be "practice makes perfect". So practice I have, and do, and shall, but still a key obstacle stands in the way.

I have found that the poems I am told are my best are all written deeply personally. When I write these, it is almost physical; I truly make myself feel whatever sense I want to convey, to the point of altered breathing and bizarre facial expressions. I don't stop editing until the words fit. I'm sure this sounds very silly to read, but the point is that what is finally written down or printed out is a carefully tailored reflection of what I mold out of a piece of my very spirit. Having been cripplingly shy for a very long time, it is only natural that I am extremely reluctant to share any of it with anyone. Hence the ridiculous puzzle barring entrance to this section, hence the look of sheer terror and the sinking deep into my seat when my poems were read in my 8th grade English class, hence the painfulness of extraction of permission to read my "little green book" for all involved parties (unless, of course, it happens to be one of those days when I haven't slept for over 36 hours...then I'm perfectly willing to do a lot of uncharacteristic things...hahaha). Such difficulty in sharing my work, much less asking for critiques from people I know to be far superior writers, leaves me (with a few exceptions) no sense of its merit, or of the reception of what I would hope some day develops into my own stylistic innovation. I am depressed by how often that when I do choose to ask for an opinion, I recieve nothing more than "wow, that's REALLY good.... hey, did I tell you about blah blah blah...?". For example, what is currently my longest piece was spurred by a writing assignment based off of a poem called Thirteen Ways to Look at a Blackbird (or something like that), which was composed of (as one might expect) 13 stanzas, each 3 or 4 lines long. I came to school the next day with a piece of approximately 220 lines. My English teacher was excited enough to make copies of it for everyone in my cluster. I did not find this out until the day of distribution, or else I would have attacked. However, I had brought an extra copy of the poem to school with me on the day the assignment was due, and was actually asking people (more discriminantly than a mass handout) to read it and give me a real opinion. Perhaps I was just seeking attention, but nonetheless I was offended by the number of people who glanced at it, read the first line of each stanza, and handed it back to me (telling me, of course, that it was "really good", and wandering off). This was not everyone, but it was a large enough majority to be severely disappointing. Another example of bad luck on my quest for informed feedback was my spontaneous decision to send my "portfolio" (ten pieces of varying quality, some of which I now wish I could say weren't actually written by me, whose compilation made me feel very important at the time) to my 6th grade English teacher (who had reawakened my interest in poetry). She sent me a very excited response telling me that she would look at it as soon as she had a chance to, thanked me for "including her in my literary life", and proceeded to drop off of the face of the earth. Not to say that she might not have perfectly valid grounds for not getting back to me, or that she is at all obligated to do so, but it still leaves me right were I started, with very limited outside views of my writing and thusly limited direction for improvement.

I realize as I am writing this that it is 1:30AM and this page has degenerated into unstructured high-vocabulary rambling. I will close by summarizing: I can't tell you if any of the pieces I have written and posted on this page are of any artistic value, but I hope that someday i will be able to create things that are. In closing, or perhaps more aptly, in finally-shutting-up:
If you do not, this is my disclaimer of any presumption that you will, but hopefully you will enjoy what is here.
(reread that last sentence a few times; it really does make sense.)