Poetry and Writing Reading/Writing Log
The work of a writer may take many different forms, from poems to novels. If it is an original product, be it an academic paper or fiction, it carries an imprint of author's personality. It is often possible to recognize the experienced author by his/her style or manner of writing. The literature can be autobiographic, and in that case, it may give peace of mind to its creator. Such an act of writing has a certain healing and therapeutic effect on the author.
The researchers Jabari Mahiri and Soraya Sablo in their study “Writing For Their Lives: The Non-School Literacy of California's Urban African American Youth.” mention an out-of-school writing of two African American teenagers, Keisha и Troy. They are prolific writers and have agreed to share their creations with the researchers. The scientists specify that these are not the real names of these adolescents, but their pseudonyms, for anonymity purpose. These teenagers live in the inner-city and have already experienced such grave and traumatic events as the death of close relatives or even bystanders as a result of shootings of bands of
drug dealers, and for them, violence and danger are an everyday reality. The poems and plays of Keisha and rap songs of Troy clearly reflect these events as well as their personalities. Some of it is autobiographic and
some depict fiction characters, and, nevertheless, it is possible to guess personal emotions and characters of the authors from it. "In their own distinctive way, they engage in literacy practices to help them come to terms with these conditions and with their experiences. In effect, they are writing for their lives.” (Mahiri and Sablo 168). By transferring their frustration and anxiety to paper and pronouncing it, the teenagers in some way get rid of these experiences. At the same time, writing for them is also a way to escape from reality. It is their means for managing the pain and suffering as an emotional relief, and thus it has a therapeutic effect on them.
Professor emeritus of English and distinguished writer Donald M. Murray in his essay “All Writing Is Autobiography claims that everything is created by him is autobiographic. He is an author of various works, such as essays, newspaper articles, and poems, and all of it projects his personality and thinking style. Murray says that no matter how he tunes the lyre, that is what form of writing he chooses and uses, he plays the same tune (66). He has a long and eventful life, and his fiction works carry traces of these experiences and interpret them. In one of his poems, Murray mentions the death of his daughter which is evidently a painful memory for him. In other works, he often renders the theme of war which he participated in, and the horrors associated with it. Some of the events described in it took place in reality …
