I think creating poetry in such states is a somewhat more productive use of them, since we end up with a sort of "abstract journal entry" into our present experience that, if we do nothing else with it, can be insightful or at least entertaining to look back on once the moment has passed. I encourage you to continue writing them if you find it fun and tell the "inner critic" to kindly "piss off!"

Well, I just did take that little "look back" and shared it with all of you too.

I just found it a good emotional outlet at a time I was enduring immense internal suffering. I cringe when I read those poems but they are also kind of endearing and they started me down the path of a new and exciting form of creativity.

You will probably cringe when you read mine... hahaha - that is assuming you will LOL I think I just cringed saying that :D

There are gaps of years where I hardly wrote at all

I am pretty much like that with everything.... my culinary adventures, writing, design, drawing - you name it. Must be a Gemini thing lol, but I go through "waves" - will do something for a while, then I bore of it and move on to one of my other "passions" - I suppose I will spend my life rotating them... but one thing I am not is a study addict of ANY kind. I am a "wing it" girl. Purely emotionally and energetically driven.

I find it most helpful, to counteract the effect of society's expectation that to be titled something one must be an expert at it

I think I just responded to that in my above statement without even realising it or having read it yet lol.

I got so burnt out looking at scores of poems daily over the course of 3 months

Am surprised you aren't talking to me in haiku right now :P hehehe :D