Every Step Forward Brings A New Perspective

Whispers to the World...

The anthology I worked on for my Creative Writing major project had to include five poems, two short stories, a play, and Part I of my dad’s autobiography. Creative Writing was one of three electives I took from the School of Social Science and Humanities (SHSS) at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG). It was the second semester of 2017, during my final year of studies.

I presented my poems to my lecturer for corrections. Earlier, she had asked us to bring our first drafts for her guidance. All my poems seemed beautiful to me, filling me with excitement and pride. The rhythm, the flow; they all sounded exceptional. But after glancing through them just once, my lecturer told me I had gone off-track.

Off-track? How? Her comment disoriented me. I was confident my poems were good; great, even. I had expected uplifting compliments, at least some encouraging words to motivate me as I completed the rest of the anthology. Instead, her critique left me feeling deflated.

To me, those poems were my best work. To her, they weren’t. She said I needed to replace all of them with better ones and advised me to “come down to my level and write like a student.”

Come down to my level? But I was a student. What other level could I possibly have been on? Did she mean I had written like an expert? Her words were confusing. I had hoped for clear, constructive feedback, but her critique was vague and unexpected. Yet, in an odd way, her comment also made me feel a bit proud.

I started to think, “Maybe she meant I did it so well it didn’t seem like student work. Maybe my poems were on par with a professional poet’s.” I wasn’t explicitly told why my poems didn’t belong in the anthology, so I began to assume my work was too advanced for my peers. I even, embarrassingly, looked down on other students, thinking I had outdone them; or even reached a lecturer’s level.

But now, looking back at those same poems, my feelings have completely changed. They’re riddled with errors. The diction sways inconsistently within each stanza, making it hard to identify a clear style or voice. The lines feel forced to serve the meter, which only creates a weak and thin rhythm. The themes are shallow, sacrificed for the sake of rhyme. Worse, the central ideas are muddled by careless collections of thoughts, further disrupting the structure.

My lecturer never pointed out these specific flaws at the time, and for that, I felt she missed an opportunity to help me grow. But the bigger issue was my arrogance; I had deluded myself into thinking I was better than my peers or even on par with the lecturers. Shameful, really.

From this perspective, the view is entirely different. But there’s something valuable in that. Those poems reflect how I viewed poetry back then. My understanding of poetry has since evolved, and the way I see my past work now tells me that growth happens with every step forward. When you're stationed at one place the view is the same. But IF YOU DESIRE A NEW VIEW, NEVER STOP MOVING FORWARD.