"...the kind of people who think writing is therapeutic."

" I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them; most writers groups moonlight as support groups for the kind of people who think that writing is therapeutic."

Our Creative Writing classes are a happy anomaly. We look at writing in a completely different way than a class at any run-of-the mill highschool. It's beause of the way we approach our writing.

I understand exactly the kind of person that Smith is trying to express. In the digital ase, these are the people who's poetry usually ends up being a story of their life set to rhyme. For the younger crowd, it's usually something to the affect of:

"My life is dark,

my heart in flames,

is this just

another game?

Does he love me?

Is it for show?

Tell me, will I

ever know?

Bloodstained razor,

broken heart,

I've lost my love,

now I depart."

Inset dramtic sigh, and/or weeping. These days, we call this Emo poetry. A lovely new label that's spread like wildfire and is tossed around in any conversation, Emo is the general term for someone who is melodramtic, pessimistic, and depressed. It's usually used in vain, as a joke. Now imagine a group of these stereotypical kids in a room together, learning about writing. I can imagine their critique... "This poem shows that you're really sad. I'm sorry. Have a tissue. *pause* Oh, no, don't change anything about it. It's great the way it is, of course, because it just shows how sad you are. *hands over another tissue for weeping kid.*"

Because this is what happens when poetry becomes therapy. Then it's all about the feeling and not about the work. That's what Smith is trying to say, I think. That the kind of people who think writing is therapeutic see writing in a completely different way. They don't see it like those of us sitting in our well-decorated cubicles. We see it as an art form, to be mastered, improved, perfected. It's about quality of the pieces -- and to the others, it's about quantity of the emotions. They can get their feelings out on lined paper in little couplets, formed into quatrains, with drawings of blood drops, or maybe little hearts if they found a new girlfriend.

Moral of this story: Writing doesn't equal therapy and here at ASFA we're pretty darn lucky.

Moral of the emo poem: My life is a black abyss. No one loves me. *tear*