The Passion of Poetry

When people talk about passion, what exactly are they talking about? Passion can mean many different things to many different people. For instance, take passion for a hobby or a craft. Or perhaps passion in love with the one whom you can’t bear to be without. And of course there is passion in war, a sense of unbridled patriotism and fervor for the motherland. This means that there is no one singular definition for the word passion. Passion is simply what drives you forward. At its core it is the force by which all things move individually and collectively. For me, that driving force is without a doubt poetry.

I have been writing for over twelve years now, everything from research papers, to blogs, to novels and short stories. However the one area of literature that truly gets me fired up, the one genre of writing I love more than any other is poetry. Poetry for me is like the gas in a car….the car may turn on but cannot move forward without the gas. I discovered my love for poetry early on reading Shel Silverstein's collections back when I was eight years old. I believe what makes me so passionate about this topic is the fact that poetry can literally change the course of history. All it takes is one poem, written by one emboldened poet, to set the course of change in this world. That is what I strive to do with my poetry. I do not simply write for the sake of writing….I write with a purpose and a passion. That passion is bringing happiness and joy and personal insight into the lives of my readers. But why me? What makes me stand out?

I often ask this question of myself whenever I am submitting poetry, or any work of literary art, to a publisher or a contest. I ask myself why should these people support me. In fact I would say those same people are asking the same exact thing. So they are wanting to know why me, I’m wanting to know why me, and hell I wouldn’t be surprised if my poem itself was wondering why me. Okay, jokes aside I have thought about this a lot and there is one answer I can think of for the question of why me? And that is because of my passion. “But,” you say, “Plenty of other people who have been in the business have passion as well”. Yes, indeed that is true. However my passion comes from a place of pain. Far too often poets and storytellers will try to keep positive spins on their works, because that is what people like to read. Because of my passion, I write about things people do not necessarily want to read, but that they desperately need to read. That is how my passion operates. Because poetry has given me such a deeper understanding of who I am, how the world operates, and has given me so much peace and freedom. And when I write about the tough issues, the darker themes, the macabre ideas, it connects with everyone. My writing connects on a whole deeper level with everyone who reads it because it is based on the realities of life rather than some fantasy land that is far out of reach. And when you have passion and can connect with people, they begin to develop your passion.

Now, I will be the very first to admit that I am not the most well written poet or author. Far from it. Yes, I have won accolades and awards for my writing, but I will never be a Ralph Waldo Emmerson or an Edgar Allen Poe. But that is not always what matters. You don’t have to be the best at something in order to change the world. Passion demands change, it drives change, it is the mother of change. So even someone like me, with one passionate dream of sharing my writing with the world, albeit not the fanciest or best written, can put into motion the tidal wave of change and healing that this world desperately needs. Poetry is my passion, and my agent of change. People applaud me for the realness, the truth of my poems, and this is why support of my dream would be a very worthwhile endeavour. Thank you so much, have a wonderful day.