Poetry and Grammar, your two faves

I didn't blog yesterday. Or, really, I couldn't. I couldn't, because I went to a poetry thing. Poetry slam. Whatever. SEE?! I CAN'T WRITE ANYMORE! IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!!

So the deal is, I went to this poetry whatever with Adrienne and it was AWESOME. (Check it out here) I know nothing about poetry, but I assume that it has to do with rhythym? And not putting a lot of words on one line? Question mark? Clearly I don't know how to write them. But I'm not going to lie, I am pretty awesome at the 3rd grade version of poems.

There once was a dog named Roof.
Upon his small tail was a poof.

Case closed, I am awesome at it. But these poems with their symbolism and their anger and their humor and their...moving your arms when you read them... it was incredible. It was like Robin Williams in What Dreams May Come when he dies and he's all "What IS this magical place?" and then he finds out it's actually familiar, because it's all from his mind and the hot Asian girl is his daughter and it's weird.

It was like that. And when I got home, I was a bit over-inspired. All I wanted to do was write symbolic poems about gay rights and childhood memories. So instead I watched tbs and went to bed. And now I need to get back on the writing horse.

My bout with poetry yesterday and my other bout with trying to be an editor have made me realize that I am not a real writer. I can call myself a writer. My occupation even has "writer" in the title. But the last time I got a grammar lesson was my Sophomore year in high school, and that's only because my teacher was appalled at how bad our grammar was. Do I actually know where commas go? Clearly, no, I do, not. And when I freelanced over the summer and a REAL editor went over my work, I was mortified to learn all my wretched writing mistakes. Did YOU know there are rules for what kind of hyphen to use, AND what kind of spacing to use around them? I didn't. I still don't really know, which just makes me jittery every time I use one now.

Really, being a copywriter means I'm not good at any kind of writing except writing how I speak. Which isn't always helpful because I say things like, "Okay but no because it's like super awesome and stuff" on a daily basis.

Oh, and copywriters are supposed to be able to write concisely.

*blinks*

So I raise my glass today to the real writers. The ones who know what the hell they are doing. To you I say, will you write a poem about me?