Poetry and Power

Hey readers, did you miss me? I missed all of you. I can catch you up on the last six months pretty quickly. I’ve been working (a lot. this is an interesting time to work in health care marketing) and writing (a lot. two books at once actually).

I’ve been thinking about getting back into writing poetry for a few months now. It all started when I was doing research for a future book and reading Lana del Rey’s poetry book “Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass.” (My book will be a modern adaptation of a classic with a soundtrack entirely of Lana’s music. She is the PERFECT muse for this story.) Her poetry hit me so hard that I was like “Dude, I want to do that!” (I say “Dude” a lot.)

Now, I wrote poetry as a kid (which you may remember from a previous post) and also as an angsty teen. But then for some reason I stopped. I went through a period where I was like “Who reads poetry anymore?” which I’ve come to find out was my brain’s way of saying “I’m intimidated by it and am afraid I can’t understand it.” This despite the fact that I was an English major.

Enter Amanda Gorman on Inauguration Day. Lord, that woman is a genius. That is all there is to it. I want to bow down to her Wayne’s World style. (I am so a child of the 80s and 90s.) USA Today is even speculating that because of her we may be in a renaissance of poetry and I hope they are right.

So, lots of motivation to start writing. But my problem was I felt paralyzed. I would pick up a pen and try to write (for some reason I feel like poetry needs to be hand-written first) and my mind would freeze, go totally blank. I think I was putting too much pressure on myself to produce something publishable. I asked my Facebook friends for advice and they said to just let go and write for myself, something private that expresses my emotions or opinions about something.

After a while, I loosened up. I finally wrote my first poem in 24 years the other day. I’m not ready to share it because it’s pretty personal, but I want to share them eventually. Right now I seem to be using poetry to work through some unresolved issues from my past, but then again, so did Rupi Kaur and look what it did for her. (I was not expecting Milk & Honey to be so dark!) I think that may be what gives poetry it’s power to touch readers and it’s staying power as well. It, to me at least, is so much more personal than prose, though I know that can be as well.

Today I’m going to start posting some poems on Instagram, so I’d like to share the first one here with you. I don’t want to bias your reading, but it has deeper meaning than its surface value.

I am finding that I have no idea how to judge whether a poem that I write is good or bad. Anyone have any tips for that?

P.S. – In case you are wondering about the title of this post, it’s based on a song by Gary Numan. But I know the cover by Gravity Kills.