It's Time for a Revolution in Poetry

"The people with weapons are afraid of pen-wielding hands." - Poet U Yee Mon, Myanmar's Minster of Defense

When you think of poetry, what comes to mind? Do you think of daring revolutionaries inspiring change, dusty academics hoarding old love letters, or that one time you tried to like it only to be told you didn’t actually get it by your English teacher?

For a long time, I wasn’t interested in poetry. I loved writing, I loved Shakespeare, and loved words but I thought that poetry wasn’t worth my time. I didn’t want to sit down and try to figure out the “deeper meaning” that might or might not be there. I had more important things to do than argue over Emily Dickinson.

But something changed this year. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve been struggling with feelings of hopelessness, isolation, and harmful ideation. I’d lost myself, my career, and had recently moved to a new city where I knew next to no one. I was very alone and struggling to write anything at all.

I got back into journaling to help me process, well, basically everything and it changed the game for me. I went back to therapy, cut off toxic relationships, began spending more time outside, tried to take better care of myself, and started asking the hard questions: “Who am I? And what do I want?”

It’s hard to describe the moment of inspiration that compelled me to begin writing poetry. As I got back on my feet, I began to get little bursts of inspiration for a short turn of phrase or a line of dialogue. I wrote them all down, “just in case.” I wanted to work on my play, my novel, my articles but came across block after block after block and couldn’t seem to write anything at all. So, I just kept writing down my little phrases and let it be enough for the moment.

During my time reconnecting with myself, I realized that I had been self-sabotaging and running away for a very long time. No wonder I was so tired. I realized that if I ever wanted to be happy, confident, and sure of myself I needed to face what I’d been running from and change my behavior. It was a hard choice, and one I’m still making today, but I chose to dive down into the depths of my soul that I’d long ignored. I let go of my fear, my pride, and my shame to untangle all knots that weighed me down.

It took a lot of courage, a lot of help, and a lot of willingness to be uncomfortable, but I started seeing change. Change in me as I became more present with my friends. Change in my work environment as I started to let go of the fear of being fired for making a mistake. And change in my writing as I was able to start writing creatively again. Slowly, steadily, surely – I changed for the better.

I’d planted my feet, turned around, and embraced everything I’d run from. I was bombarded by overwhelming emotions and deep trauma I hadn’t processed but I swore not to let it stop me. During a solo trip to Ireland when I was 22, I learned that there is no way but foreword and I was determined to keep moving. For a moment, it was move or die.

I didn’t know it then, but all those short turns of phrases I’d been playing with were practice. In a moment of divine inspiration at midnight after spending time with friends, my first poem poured out of me like water from a full cup:

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your eyes look like stars.

the night sky, staring back at me -

full of depth and breadth,

you hold a vast infinity -

pinpricks of light dot the dark,

flickering, twinkling – full of art.

i see the universe in you.

i wonder what you see in me?

-

A sweet, simple poem about how much I love my friend’s brown eyes and how curious I am to know what they think of mine. It’s not technically impressive and it pales in comparison to my current style, but it is honest, and it was the springboard that led me to write over 200 stanzas of poetry in 3 months. I literally cannot stop.

Now poetry, to me, is a vessel of divine understanding. I get it. It’s the ultimate expression of the human experience put into words to be shared with others. I can see how poetry moves mountains, changes minds, touches hearts, inspires peace, and brings us all closer together. I love poetry.

I’m still exploring what my poetry means to me, what it means to my readers, and what it means in my society at large – I have a lot to explore, a lot of mistakes to make, and a lot of poems to write. Since I started reading and writing poetry, I have felt alive. I am alive now. I feel connected to others and have a new, deep appreciation for our shared human experience. I feel as if I’ve found my heart’s calling and now that I’ve heard its song, I can’t ignore it. I must write poetry.

While small, I have found a devoted audience of readers who enjoy my work, share their thoughts, and look forward to my next poem. Their genuine delight in my writing and their honesty in expressing it emboldens me to write even more and dig even deeper. I am forever grateful for all my readers and I'm excited to work towards sharing my writing with an even broader audience.

Poetry should not be gatekept or made overly complicated so only a select audience will understand it. It should not be written for collecting dust on bookshelves or being torn apart in English classes only to be forgotten after graduation. Poetry should be consumed regularly like music, movies, and mobile phone games. It should be written frequently like a journal entry or a tweet. It should be an integral part of our society.

In today’s highly commodified world, poetry has been neglected and left to obscurity. Sure, there are still poets writing and creating (and a lot of cute Instagram posts) but it’s much less popular, accessible, and consequential than it once was. Poets used to be celebrities, rock stars, gods on earth who wielded a divine gift – now they struggle to be published, struggle to find an audience, and have dwindled to few and far between.

It’s time for a revolution in the way we consume and produce poetry. Who said it could only live on the page?

I have plans to bring poetry back into popularity by utilizing the same platforms other creators use to promote and create their work such as Twitter, Spotify, YouTube, and Memberful. If you combine those platforms with the standard practice of publication and distribution, then poetry could evolve into a new state of being and re-enter society with the rest of us.

One of my favorite pieces of feedback that I’ve gotten for my poetry is that’s “unflinchingly honest.” The more I lean into the honesty of my human experience and share it via my poetry, the better I know myself and the better I’m able to connect with others. Poetry is one of the most vulnerable forms of writing, which is probably why it’s one of the least popular and why I avoided it for so long.

The world needs more honesty, more authenticity, more passion. The world needs more poetry.

So many of us, myself included, spend days – weeks even – numbing ourselves to the human experience because it’s easier to survive when we aren’t alive. It’s easy to kick back with a show on in the background and mindlessly scroll through social media for hours; it’s hard to be present and thoughtfully consume artistic entertainment. People’s whole livelihoods go into tv shows, movies, music, paintings, theatre, comedy, novels, photography - art that we brush by because we feel we don’t have the energy to engage properly. It’s heartbreaking.

How long are we willing to live like this? How long are we going to stand ignoring our feelings, pushing away sincerity, and denying ourselves the right to live in the name of productive multitasking? How long can we survive in shallow waters knowing the depths call to us begging to be explored?

It’s hard being honest with others and even harder being honest with ourselves. But how will we know if the hard work and temporary discomfort are worth it if we never genuinely try?

My poetry is an honest expression of the deepest parts of myself. The hurt, the trauma, the joy, the love – the feelings that we keep so close to our chests that they're usually invisible. For a long time, I hid from myself and ran from uncomfortable feelings that I didn’t understand because I assumed the only thing waiting for me on the other side was pain. I was wrong. There was poetry waiting on the other side.

People should read poetry because it is what makes us human. Our feelings, emotions, perceptions, experiences, relationships, what it is to be alive as a human being on this small, floating rock can all be elegantly understood through a few precise lines of poetry. That is why I’m passionate about writing poetry.

Now I’ll let you read my latest poem and you can decide if you’d like to support my revolution.

The Aloof Puritan:

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i tire of this narrative.

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goody friend and goody enemy

whispered to each other with

clandestine vitriol to gossip about

the so called goodwoman perfect.

-

you don’t know me.

-

they called her goodwoman for

she was unwed and called her

perfect for she did every task

outrageously perfect or not at all.

-

i wanted to impress you.

-

while they were alone begrudging

her skill and discipline she was

watching from a distance trying to

find the courage for a mistake.

-

you assumed what you knew.

-

her real name had been lost to a

nickname and no one called her by

a sweeter title for she knew it cut

both ways and could protect her.

-

i thought it was my best self.

-

strange thumping could be heard

in the night from her room and

she was often seen taking long

walks in the woods unchaperoned.

-

you made no equal effort.

-

gossip mutated into rumors and

soon goodwoman perfect was

called a heathenous witch for it was

the only explanation for perfection.

-

i assumed it was my fault.

-

goody enemy knew she could not

stop perfection but she could stop

opportunities and praise and love

from reaching her perfect ears.

-

you worked against me.

-

goody friend knew she could not

best perfection but she could

best the goodwoman with her

treasonous reason and influence.

-

i was blind to backstabbing.

-

finally the town could take not a

drop more of goodwoman perfect

so they condemned her to exile

and gave her no chance to plead.

-

you never gave me grace.

-

the night before her banishment

loud thumping could again be

heard pounding in her secret room

and the sound rang through dawn.

-

i put everything i had into it.

-

the next morning the goodwoman

had an audience awaiting her

departure but she disappointed

everyone for the very first time.

-

you had tickets to my takedown.

-

upon investigation they found her

in a pool of black blood oozing from

her scarred back with a cattail whip

and a diary of deadly loneliness.

-

i used to hurt myself for you.

-

you probably won’t believe me.