While working toward a query letter and defining the perfect locale for the work which will indeed be worthy of submittal, I came across some things. Some words. Significant words that have not been previously published, though permissions have been granted.
These are my words. I share these with you as edited this day (August 15th 2014) in order to clear your mind of reserve whereupon my aptitude may be questioned. My college professor was impressed with this essay and furthermore with several pieces of poetry I have composed, some of which will be represented here.
This [essay], and most of the poetry was written during a very trying time in my life at the loss of a dear friend. Somehow these things (death, other great life circumstances) intrigue my creativity - and some of my best work came from very dark places. There is no truer attribute to fine poetry.
I share this with you now as an inspiration or motivation or even just another story you’ve read lately, for now. Someday, perhaps you’ll remember this brief glimpse into the soul of a young aspiring writer that was afraid and thought to be mis-understood before she blossomed and shared her words. Someday when you publish your first words, maybe you’ll remember the hope instilled here.
Enjoy.
Poetry and Me
Growing up I always had a passion for poetry. My mother was a semi-professional organist and she often practiced at home on her Hammond organ. Sometimes only instrumentally. Sometimes though she would sing along to some of the seventies’ most adorned lyrics and famed artists that she would learn to play in her spare time. The distinctive hum and familiar lines of song reverberated throughout the halls of our home and more significantly, my soul. Music is often accompanied with poetry and the clairvoyance of youth gave me immediate recognition of the connectivity for the purpose of depth.
Before I could write, my mother would place me on the organ bench and let me ‘play’. Mostly, I just wanted to sing whatever came to mind. I never came close to picking up on my mother’s talent, but I could make up a story (or song) while hammering out some random melody without reservation.
These may have been some of the defining moments of my being. As my mother realized I could tell ‘stories’, she became weary of my capability to ‘make stuff up’. It would be the demise of our relationship for years to come, but also the foundation for my intense dedication to writing. When my mother would accuse me of lying, I wrote about it. Sometimes I just wrote, mostly though, I composed short poems. Sometimes I would write poems for my mom, in hopes they would preserve my innocence. Usually I wrote short, rhyming poetry that I never thought was good enough, and neither did anybody else. There was a deep lack of respect for good poetry throughout my entire household. Eventually, I gave up on poetry and just stuck to my journal.
There came a period in late 2008 when I realized this was something missing in my life. Take note that I have one true obsession. It is to do exactly what people tell me I cannot do. With that in mind, I signed up for this [poetry] class in hopes of becoming a better, more experienced poet and writer. After ten enlightening weeks, I felt rejuvenated, and for the first time in a long time, enthusiastic about writing poetry again.
While I had always ‘dabbled’ in writing poetry, I never fully grasped the concept beyond rhyming, as in lyrical composure. My love for music may have interrupted this process. Nevertheless, I hated prose and avoided reading (and writing) poetry that did not rhyme, at all costs.
In one of our first class meetings, the spontaneous efforts of the group immediately gave me a new perspective in writing poetry altogether. Inspiration is a profound practice. In writing my own poetry, I am always searching for the ‘right’ words, and always, always trying to make it rhyme. For the first assignment, I was thrown for hours in trying to find my way into someone else’s inspiration. “Inspiration” is the title and product of this piece. I must say, it is truly one of my favorite pieces of my own work, without end rhyme. Interacting with others in this group gave me a sense of perception that I had not before been accustomed to, and surely offered supportive insight.
While inspiration is the key to any writer’s work, I had never been forced to get inspired by something. One is inspired, or one is not.
The second assignment for the quarter put me in that position for the first time. Immediately upon sitting down to complete this poem, I was immersed in the idea of writing it from the point of view of a book, or a journal, rather. I am confident that the end product of this poem depicts exactly what I wanted it to, even while I did not know what that was in the beginning.
That quarter proved to be an extremely turbulent and frenzied period in my life. In reflection of the affairs of my life during those weeks in the classroom, I realized how important it was for me to live, literally, with a potentially obvious optimistic outlook on this world, the universe, and whatever else is out there. Without this class, I may have drifted away from that realm of thinking, which would have been detrimental to my writing. I understood now, the importance of clarity, reality, and the hazards of abstraction.
In hindsight, the supplemental intellect of the poets from the Anthology used for this curriculum undoubtedly healed wounds from my childhood. I can appreciate that poetry is an unparalleled art.
Visionaries are sometimes regarded as extreme, fanatical, boring even. For this reason, I never quite understood the poetry of Emily Dickinson even during and after studying her work in high school. I found it to be dull and characterless. The problem was I never fully understood how to read poetry, at all. If ‘Roses are Red, and Violets are Blue,’ then what the hell was Emily Dickinson getting at anyway? It should be so simple as to get into the heart and soul of an individual and really try to interpret what they were feeling and thinking at the time they wrote something. The truth is Dickinson turned me off to reading poetry until this class. The likes of Robert Frost were more down my alley. Metaphor, I think, is the most beautiful form of poetry. “The Need of Being Versed In Country Things” is my favorite Frost poem, but I find an impulse in all of his poetry to become a better poet.
Poetry has been an intermittent hobby for me since before I could write. Sharing my work with that class was surprisingly comfortable for me as I had never publicized my secret pastime. It turned out that the group was extremely accepting and seemingly impressed with my poem “Smoldering Memory”. I wrote this poem just over a year BEFORE I took this class and the final product is definitely one of my best, maybe my best. I did not make many changes to the draft the class had discussed because I felt strongly about the way I had it arranged at that point, simply improving its depth (from my standpoint as the poet).
The City Poem was assigned, ironically, just before I left town for a short weekend getaway. I did not grow up in Nashville; in fact it was the first time I had been there. Immediately upon arriving in the city, I knew I would write my assignment in conjunction with my trip. The towers of the AT&T building situated downtown gave me the design of the poem, and it’s title. “Gotham City” is another of my best works, if only for the simple fact that all I had was the title until two hours before the assignment was due. I’m proud of myself for writing about something that I felt so passionate about and creating a context that defines itself.
When I began writing this reflection in 2009, I was concerned that maybe I had not learned anything because I was out of class so often, but I know I learned this, at least: ‘So what if I don’t do it like everybody else does.’ (A lyric from Gary Allan’s, “Like It’s a Bad Thing”). I know there is a certain order to how one writes and interprets poetry, but it is also an art that can only be truly appreciated by those that want to understand what the poet is stating. Those that crawl into the emotions of a poem and search for the deepest depths of it’s meaning will inevitably come out of the experience with a position on the topic.
April Renee
June 2009
Edited for 1st publication August 2014
