Workshop-Claire Budzinski

At first I was absolutely terrified of even the thought of sharing a poem that I wrote in front of the entire class. I was so scared because every time I write a poem I always hate it at first and then even if I like it a little bit, I never want to show anyone because I feel like they are better poets than me and are judging me for writing such crappy poems that lack imagery and beautifully creative comparisons that I could just never think of. I also was terrified of the idea that my poems would be critiqued by my classmates and on the first day I just wanted to hide in the corner. But, after I read my first poem to the class for the first time, I realized that it really wasn't so bad, and that it felt kind of liberating to be able to share something personal that I wrote with a group of strangers, essentially. I looked forward to hearing what my classmates had to say about my poems and didn't really worry anymore if they would like it or not. It also helped me to learn to like my own poetry because I realized that other people had good things to say about my poems, so they couldn't be that bad. In the end, I really enjoyed workshop and wish that I had never been so scared of it in the first place!