Why I Started Writing Poetry

I’ve always loved to write. The kind of writing I’ve done has always been in service of working things out, an excavation of the deep, down in my depths of myself in order to make sense of the ruminating chaos in my head. It was helpful, but I noticed over time, my purpose became a bit misguided. The energy I took to my journals was often in the spirit of fixing what I assumed was broken. The idea that something was wrong, and I needed to get down to the bottom of it as quickly as possible. Poetry came along and opened up a different perspective for me, a new possibility for my urge to write.

Years ago, I came across the poet Mary Oliver. Her poems about nature and being present, about the paradoxes of beauty and pain pierced my soul. One night, my daughter was sick in bed from a particularly nasty illness. Her mind was consumed with anxious thoughts and worries of illness and death and a lack of control over her situation. In an effort to calm her racing mind, I read Mary’s poem Terns, 

It’s not a particularly well-known poem, but on that night, my daughter was comforted. Mary’s words were not words of solving or fixing, but words of sorrow and doubt and devotion to what is here, right now. In poetry, I see a way to use words to express the messiness of being human, not in an attempt to fix or explain, but in service of experiencing, feeling, honoring, and grieving what it is to live in this world.

This is why I started writing poetry. Not for fame or fortune, but to feel and express without the impulse to fix. And perhaps somewhere along the way, my words can touch someone else, speak to the human messiness inside of them, and that my words might reach out to say, I feel that too.