by Lana Evans

Created on: April 18, 2008

To tap a flame once could be very lightly considered experience, but the issue of burning your hand is not the subject of mere opinion. To tap a flame repeatedly is a more authentic experience. We grow and change through repeated experiences. Who grows or changes through repeated opinions? I know people who have clung to opinions for twenty or thirty years. It's a dead end hobby. If people become too devoted to their opinions, they insist that they don't need experience; so they overlook experiences that could alter their opinions; they see and listen selectively.

In poetry, readers want to get some kind of sensation from what they're reading, right? Unless you are aiming for humor in your poetry, which is, indeed, a sensation, then you must write convincingly. Forgive me, but what kind of idiot would dare write even the first word about slavery or poverty, childbirth or marriage, without having some form of experience in those matters. Frankly, I'd be embarrassed of myself. I'm not out to make people feel awful or be a big meanie, but it's just the truth.

Experience doesn't always have to be first hand. Second hand experience may suffice in some things. I was once married to an army man; I myself was never in the army. I was close enough to the person who had the experience to witness some of what his military days were like. And, as a dependent, I was part of the military society and lifestyle.

In poetry, you can pull off a lot of fluff and flower to try to conceal the fact that you aren't experienced in what you're writing about. You may fool a lot of inexperienced people. But for your poetry to survive the ages, and to convince the truly experienced, you should display some of your own experience. People know when they're eating from a box of imported chocolates versus a buck-ninety-two bag of sugar from the corner store.

We all have authentic experiences. Why write mere opinions about someone else's experiences when you have perfectly valid experiences of your own to write about, anyway? You're bound to get more recognition, and it's more satisfying to write what you know.

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