Thinking Outside the Box
Thinking creatively, and with originality is a tricky business.
It doesn't have to be that way. Too often we limit ourselves
with boundaries, constraints, and rules when we don't have to. I
offer you the "poem" below as a small example of "thinking
outside the box".
Some will tell you that this is not true poetry, and it may not
be, for a number of reasons. It doesn't appear to have much of a
meter, or even a consistent rhyming scheme. I also use different
bold text to emphasize certain words. In the original
version of this I also used different colors for some of the
words and formatted the whole thing as a big diamond in the
middle of the page. Some of these things are probably traitorous
sins against the general rules of "traditional" poetry.
Even so, that doesn't mean that this piece is not a creative
endeavor in it's own right. What do you think?
The black cloud still looms menacingly overhead.
It's circling like some kind of
dark, vaporous buzzard,
waiting for us to give up,
so it can dive and peel the flesh
from our bones in dripping strips.
We squint against the sun at it,
shading our eyes from the glare,
shaking our empty fists at it,
muttering snippets of our misfortune
to each other.
Behind us in the sand, we see the trail
of our desperate footprints,
scurrying this way and that
across the landscape.
We have left no stone unturned,
yet we have not found our shotgun
or our parasol.
Unless a caravan of gypsies appears out of nowhere,
we will soon need to leave here voluntarily,
or be shown the way out in a much more distasteful
manner.
To sit idle is to give up, and quitters never win, but
...
we have no answers for this riddle we are in.
When I first released this, the description I wrote said,
"Don't tell me this isn't poetry. I think it's poetic, so...
it's poetry." I was bitterly trying to stuff it into a box that
it wouldn't fit in.
However, based on some feedback I received, I realize it can't
be traditional poetry. Still, I feel that as a creative piece,
it combines art and poetry, and therefore has some sort of value
to stand on its own. Maybe it's not poetry, but it's...
something.
Thinking "outside the box" when you do anything creative is like
that. You have to be willing to stand up and validate your work,
because it won't easily fall into any certain category for the
masses.
So, be brave. Make your own genre. Make your own medium.
Make a new box.