You need more poetry in your life
You need more poetry in your life. I was sharply reminded of this epic truth this weekend when I was cleaning. I hate cleaning and often listen to NPR podcasts to make unpalatable tasks more bearable. As fate would have it, the podcast I chose was new to me although after this weekend’s binge I am a big fan: Al Letson‘s State of the Re:Union.
However, it was the Poetry Month show: The Poems, The Poets, The Power that reminded me that poetry is so often the solution for everything that ails me. My life hasn’t been so great lately. I won’t bore you with the details because there are many many people so much worse off than me, but Friday afternoon was a low point for me. I was just so worn down and worn out that I didn’t know what to do. There were some blog posts I wanted to write, but I just couldn’t settle with all these emotions teeming and roiling inside.
That is how I ended up cleaning – I thought maybe if I took control over one small corner of my life and created order in one room that I might be better able to tackle something larger. Isn’t that one of the things people tell you to do when you are overwhelmed? Focus on some small, simple task you can accomplish?
As fate would have it, I chose to listen to The Poems, The Poets, The Power while trying to take control over one small corner of the chaos that is my life and I found myself laughing and crying and, more importantly, writing poetry. It has been weeks since I wrote a poem and clearly there was a log jam of emotions that needed to be cleared. I dumped three word avalanches onto the pages of my journal, cleaning and writing and cleaning and writing and cleaning and writing.
I have since shaped one of those word dumps into a poem (see The Sandwich) and am still working on the other two — in part because I still haven’t settled on the form I need to harness (direct?) all the emotion wrapped up in those pieces. But this is why I need to write more poetry and you do too!
You can’t tell me — in these times and in this world — you do not have a similar log jam of emotions causing all sorts of problems. Put down the whiskey and the antacids and pick up your pen. Don’t believe me? Listen to The Poems, The Poets, The Power and accept your fate as a poet. You don’t have to share your poems as I do although you should. I share my work not because I think I am an awesome poet because I am still very much a poet in progress. I share my work because I believe poetry inspires more poetry. I hope to make you think “well if she can write poetry” or “my poems aren’t any worse than hers”.
Whatever you think of my poetry, I hope you will pick up a pen and write a poem of your own to release the log jam inside you. And if you feel like sharing please use the #JustWrite hashtag.
