Journal Three Dylan Pangborn

 I think one of the most interesting observations I had in Chapter nine of The Triggering Town was just how much importance Hugo put on poetry and being a poet. He makes it very clear that his life would not be complete should he find himself being a poet. The quote "But no job accounts for the impulse to find and order those bits and pieces of yourself that can come out only in the most unguarded moments, in the wildest, most primitive phrases we shout alone at the mirror." was very eye-opening to me because I think it speaks to a need we have as humans to let out emotions that we tend to bottle up. I think Hugo advocates art, be that poetry or not, is necessary for us because it provides a way of digging deep and facing those emotions.

One of my biggest takeaways from the book as a whole was that if you want to write about a big idea it is better to start with a small subject. I think even as I've been writing poems for class I find myself needing to dial back from a big idea and remember to start smaller. Sometimes we really want to tackle the world but it is important to have a place to start. Another big takeaway was that establishing rules for yourself while writing can be a very helpful way to get the best out of your writing. The entirety of chapter five was Hugo giving his personal rules while qualifying it by saying that these are rules he plays by but that you don't necessarily have to. I had never thought about imposing rules upon myself when writing but it makes a lot of sense since it could act to keep me a little bit more restrained in a positive way. Overall the book was a fantastic supplement to a more scholarly book because you just don't get the kind of raw lessons Richard Hugo gave out of a textbook.


Richard Hugo just living his life.