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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Siena chapter.

As a scientific person, sometimes I find it hard to write creatively. I find myself always looking to guidelines, procedures, formats, writing conventions, formulas, or outlines. When I have to write it is usually an argumentative or persuasive essay or a scientific paper or lab report. I wanted to expand my horizons as a person to be more creative.

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I challenged myself to write more creatively with the least amount of guidelines possible. I figured the easiest format for this would be poetry because poetry can be in a bunch of different formats with or without many rules. I think it also made me feel a little better because I knew I was notĀ really breaking any rules.

I tried this for a couple of days trying different poem formats.

Day 1 – Haiku

Usually the earliest poems that we are taught are in haiku formats. Haiku poetry has 3 lines, the first and last consisting of 5 syllables and the middle having 7 syllables.

These are a LOT harder than they look. It took me so long to find words that even associated with each other. Trying to maintain a syllable count was so difficult too. I ended up finally making one, but then realized that maybe I struggled because I needed more inspiration.

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Day 2 – Ode

I decided that maybe I needed more inspiration and more structure, so I thought of one of my favorite songs called Ode to Viceroy by Mac DeMarco. An ode is a very structural poem that consists of stanzas and has a praising tone towards an object or person. I thought writing an ode to the winter felt appropriate considering how cold and snowy the weather has been lately. As I was writing, I realized how much I did not like winter, and that really through me off, because it is supposed to have a praising tone. It turned into me complaining about the winter and how cold it was, and it was a miserable poetry fail on my part.

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Day 3 – Free Style

I decided to scrap both of my first two feeble attempts and to have no rules and just write. I was just hoping something would come to me in somewhat of a cohesive thought. I really struggled with this one. I barely got past more than a sentence.

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Moral of the story, Iā€™m not good at poetry. Although, I would notĀ have known if I didn’t try. My poetry itself was enough to make any one of my past English teachers disappointed. The fact is that I tried and put myself out there is something that I can be proud of, even if my work was not good. It is easy for us to feel discouraged when trying something new, but Iā€™m living proof that by even just trying something new, itĀ could end up giving you a new appreciation for something.

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Jenna Mantell is a Siena College Class of 2021 alumna. During her time at Siena, she was a Biology and Communications Journalism double major.