Rewriting The First Poem You Loved

A friend of mine (once again, it was one of my English major suitemates) pinned a pin on Pinterest that I absolutely love. The pin contained the words of Oscar Wilde: "They say you spend your whole life rewriting the first poem you ever loved." 

This may be somewhat of an exaggeration, but it certainly contains a lot of truth. One of the first poems I remember truly falling in love with was Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay." I heard the poem for the first time in a 200 level English class, and immediately was captivated by its use of concrete images and metaphysical ideas.

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

(By Robert Frost)

"Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay."

Last semester, we wrote rhyming couplets for one of our assignments in poetry class. It was a rather difficult assignment for me, because I wanted to choose words that fit both in my rhyming scheme, but also fit the tone and purpose of my poem. As Dr. Cox said, "You need to control the rhyme, don't let the rhyme control you." After much trial and error, I finally came up with one I liked.

"Decline"

(By M.L. Campbell)

The roaring March days warm the moist winter earth

And buds pierce the snow in a show of rebirth.

But the flower of spring turns in summer to green

And brown spots appear on a leaf that was clean.

Then the sunset that fades in the cold western sky

Is the last golden color of autumn to die.

Obviously, the rhyme, meter, and even much of the overall meaning is different from Frost's poem, but I was surprised to see how much imagery I had accidentally borrowed. My suitemate (the one who shared the pin) also took the poetry class with me, and the tone of her poems often felt similar to the poems of Longfellow, her favorite poet. 

It has been said that "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery," but I think there is more to that in poetic imitation. Oftentimes, the poems you love seem to bleed into your soul and stay there. I've found myself perfectly recalling from memory certain lines of poetry that I loved as a child, even years after I had last seen the poem. 

Words are powerful things, and poetry has a wonderful way of remaining in your mind long after you have read it. Perhaps those beloved poems sit there when you write poetry, and blend with your own original thoughts that make their way through your fingers and out onto the pages of your poem.