why?

[heslopian]

When I first began writing poetry, all my work had rigid rhyme schemes, and the naive attempts at high lyricism present, I think, in most teenage verse, but as I started reading more, my structures became less refined, and my themes more intimate. I revealed things I probably shouldn't, produced and published on the web all these long, rambling, angry poems about suicide, anxiety, sexuality and hate.

This change in my style happened, I think, partly due to the onset of my mental illness and my desire to express how I felt about it, but also because I'd just discovered Anne Sexton, and realised that personal subjects could be discussed in legit literature. However, I was determined to avoid the trap of thinking I'm as good as her simply because I share her sickness, that the emotion is enough and one doesn't need to work at the art. I've long despised that school of thought that just because a poem is sad, an honest expression of grief, that somehow makes it good and the aesthetics don't count. Write that shit when you're fifteen, but try and improve as you mature.

Now, oddly enough, I've been regressing slightly, not towards rhyme schemes, but a simpler, more imagistic kind of verse, with more technical refinement and objectiveness.