Is It Poetry Or “Journaling”?

Did you keep a personal journal when you were younger? Something to share feelings about strange exciting things you were experiencing you couldn’t articulate to others? Maybe just an intimate chronicle of your times?

One aspect of poetry I have found to be a most controversial one in my past is the question of just how personal can a poem get before it is considered something other than poetry?

I was an editor for the Western Illinois University annual college literary magazine for three years, taking it completely over my last year. It was a quality collection of poems, short stories, photography,… I was the first to introduce strip art into the mix. My team and I were very proud of the eclectic diversity.

The only conflict I had with the director and English professor overseeing our cumulative affair was in what she called “journaling”, or just writing out feelings on something and calling it poetry.  She didn’t believe it had a place in our book.

I tended to agree with her. Many submissions at that level tend to reflect that flavor of direction. However, I argued up and down for one application that I thought was cleverly worded and poetically expressed a relatable emotion. She still said it was journaling. I still put it in there! I’m glad I did.

Many poets using poetry as a therapeutic device tend to lean into this approach. I’ve always considered art as subjective, and one poet can never be “better than” or “nowhere close to” another. I’ve had my doubts of course… especially when reading the brilliant works of many of the modern poets today! But it really does come down to comparing “apples to oranges” as colleague and master editor Steve Wheeler once put it, which eased my worries immensely. 

Themes such as lost love and failures of so many colors consecrate the graves of most journalistic poetry. They are generally identified in detailed circumstances surrounding a relatable and often obvious theme.

Don’t get me wrong. I wrote one today and didn’t even consider putting it out there, but I did. A section of which as follows…

                                        —

fatalistic

…innocence psychoanalyzed by wisdom

gives way to shorts in an electrical brain 

snapping my tongue uncharacteristically 

freezing a gratuitous patience paralyzed 

forcing awkward damage control apologies 

eventually apologizing for my very existence 

hampering hankerings to do something wild

only because it hurts more than it ever did 

physically mentally spiritually life forces me

to become something I never wanted to be…

…fatalistic…

©️penned by: m.e.

                                       —

Be honest!!! 

I enthusiastically encourage you to be the editor here… is this poetry or just “journaling”?!

I appreciate your comments as always! Please feel free to contribute your feelings on this article below and thank you so much for reading! 

Matt Elmore