Why I Write Poetry

Have you ever had a moment of intense, overwhelming emotion, and you either had no one you could explain it to or you just didn't have the words to adequately describe it? Because that happens to me a lot.

Especially last year when I was in an extremely toxic and emotionally abusive relationship that I could not get away from. There were a lot of sleepless nights and racing thoughts during that time and even for a while after all ties had been severed with my abuser. That's the thing about trauma...emotions can well up inside of you, and all you want to do is scream, let it all out. But you can't. You don't know how to talk about it. You can barely understand it yourself, let alone put your feelings into words to explain to someone else what exactly it is you're experiencing.

“There’s a reason poets often say, ‘Poetry saved my life,’ for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul’s suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.” --Clarissa Pinkola Estes

But late at night, when I'm all alone lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, unable to get any sleep, something stirs within me. Random little phrases or descriptions come to me but rarely in a fully formed thought that would make any sort of sense in the context of a conversation. So I write them down in my notebook or in my phone so as to not forget them, and then, as I write, more begins to flow out of me, elaborating on the initial thought. I begin to tell the story of a moment or a feeling, bleeding my heart out onto every page. And just for a second I am able to find some relief from raging war inside.

I've always loved poetry, especially the poetic lyrics of a hauntingly beautifully constructed song (I'm looking at you Gregory Alan Isakov, and you too Dodie), because they seem to have a knack of being able to put the very words I've been searching for to the feelings I've been so desperately trying to express.

"Hope was a letter I never did send, Love was a country I couldn't defend" --Gregory Alan Isakov

"I'll take what I can get 'cause I'm too damp for a spark" --Dodie

I have tried so many times to write like these incredible wordsmiths, but anything I come up with is usually nothing but feeble attempts to share my experience or to even simply understand the intoxicating cocktail of feelings mixing around inside of me. It can be so difficult yet so rewarding to put a life into words. I wouldn't say the "genius" comes to me very often, but when it does it feels so good to know that someone could look at my words and truly understand or even feel what I'm trying to describe.

“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” --Allen Ginsberg

I took a bunch of those poems that I wrote last year about my relationship and consequential struggles and turned them into a book that I self-published (stay tuned for the story of how I did that). My book, butterflies for breakfast (and other poems), is now available for purchase! If you are interested in a copy, you can click the link below to order yours now! x

Until next time,

Alexis