Poetry, in Motion
Recently, in the spirit of “research” for some stories I’ve finally decided to try writing, I’ve engaged in the utterly self-immolating exercise of reading my old journals. Mid-life crisis much? Among the angsty musings of my younger, more wildly emotive self are two, yes two volumes of epically cringe-worthy poetry, composed roughly between the ages of 15 and 20. Honestly, as current me now labors daily to eek out 500 words I do not want to immediately obliterate, I’m pretty impressed with past me’s prolific body of work.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to poetry as a writer and a reader. Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout may have been an early inspiration, but much credit is due to Vincent Price’s reading of The Raven, whose recording I’d check out of the New Britain Public Library–all my soul within me burning–every Saturday. I even had a pretty neat little hustle in middle school cranking out Hallmark-worthy couplets for my classmates’ Mother’s Day cards.
I’d sometimes come home from school to find that my dad had left a surprise on my desk: a slim edition of Romeo and Juliet, or the chunky doorstop of Immortal Poems of the English Language. In high school, where it will not in the least surprise you that one of my regular hangouts was the alternative bookstore on the campus of Central Connecticut State University, I inevitably became acquainted with the Beats, blowing my waitressing paychecks on the requisite copies of Howl and A Coney Island of the Mind, plus a box set of Kerouac’s spoken word recordings (which I think I gave away, sadly.)
Though I studied journalism in college, I filled my schedule with as many poetry electives as I could, translating Sappho and unpacking Hart Crane’s The Bridge line-by-line. I naturally fell in with a group of Emerson students (I went to BU) who formed a weekly poetry salon called the Stinky Elitists, where every Tuesday evening we’d gather at our friend’s apartment on Marlborough Street to read and critique one another’s work. And smoke tons of cigarettes and drink tons of wine, because what else would you expect from any self-respecting salon?
But then something happened, I wish I remembered what. According to my journal, a specific entry in fact, I declared that I was done with writing poetry. And just like that, I dropped the habit, cold turkey.
Now, I want to clarify that my poems were not ever very good, and I was never under any illusion that I was a serious poet. I might have landed on a clever turn of phrase every now and again, but I’d call that a happy accident at best. It was a hobby–one that I treasured–another creative outlet, nestled alongside my zine-making and my collage-pasting.
Still, this sudden abandonment gives me pause. Why did I feel I had to give it up, casting it aside as some childish thing? What was it that I felt I’d grown out of? My fear is that it was the freedom to express myself–even privately–with such raw, unfiltered emotion.
Still, poetry has always managed to find a way back to me. I wish I could say that I am an educated and expansive reader of the form, but I’m not. I just take it as it comes, I like what I like. I’ve always been grateful to come across the poems occasionally posted at the ends of subway cars. A friend of mine often shares pieces by Mary Oliver on social media. Another friend often includes a poem at the end of her newsletter, and I recently discovered another twice-weekly email of hilarious yet poignant poems on pop culture, like this one on woke capitalism. There’s the inevitable summer appearance of Williams's plums in the icebox, of course. And one of my very dearest friends is a real live and profoundly talented poet who’s been posting a poem a day in support of Black Lives Matter.
Already I understand that I’m extraordinarily lucky to be surrounded by these brilliant conduits sending regular creative sparks my way. Yet over the past few years, I find myself returning to the question: how might I invite more poetry into my life? I wonder if others have an abandonment story similar to my own.
Though I’m reluctant to add to the overflowing bin of “now more than ever in these uncertain times” garbage (paging Miss Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout!), well, now more than ever do we need the lifelines of beauty and sadness and rage and optimism that poetry can offer us, meditations in an emergency indeed.
I’m curious to know if and how you engage with poetry. How do you find it, how does it find you? If you think of it, send me a favorite. It’s not just for stinky elitists, you know.
Thumbnail image by artist Justine Khamara