Poetry: My Second Love

With as much poetry as I have published on Vocal lately, one might think that I am poet first and a fiction writer second. I have received many compliments on my poetry, even on some of my older poetry that I have posted to show how far I have come (for an example, see my poem “The Museum of Freedom”). Some people have even suggested that I publish a book of poetry (here’s looking at you, Paul and Donna), and I am seriously considering it.

It might come as a surprise to some people, then, to learn that poetry is actually my second love. My first love, what introduced me to the joy of writing and made me want to become a writer in the first place, is fiction writing. I have always loved to create my own worlds and populate them with intricate characters, exploring their lives and using them to make sense of the real world around me. I have also been told that I am rather good at it and have even had some stories published through a small independent publisher called Notch Publishing House.

Why, then, is poetry coming to the forefront for me now? Why will my first published book probably be a book of poetry? That probably has to do with my history with poetry and how my relationship with poetry has developed over the past few years.

I first felt a pull towards poetry in between my freshman and sophomore years in high school (I think—it’s been so long that it’s hard to keep track). My grandfather on my mother’s side got sick with Leukemia, and we knew he was going to die. I turned to the only outlet I had for my emotions even back then: writing. I usually wrote fiction, but this time, I turned to poetry. I showed some of it to my mother, and she immediately wanted to show it to my grandfather. So, we compiled a rough book of poetry for him and gave it to him. According to his nurse, it made him—and his nurse—cry. This was a man who never cried. My grandfather made me promise, then and there, to someday get published. While I have been published since then, I still feel as though I have not fulfilled that promise yet because I have not published my poetry.

I became a bit discouraged regarding my poetry over the years. When I gave copies of the book of poetry for my grandfather to people on my father’s side of the family, they just said that it was “brave” of me to do so (what does that even mean?). Then, when I took an entry-level poetry writing class in college, it seemed as though I could not please the teacher, even though she was someone I liked as a person. She just kept saying that I was not finding my voice or using the white space to my advantage, and I struggled to get what she meant. Even when I was accepted into the advanced level poetry writing class and got encouragement from that teacher, I could not get the other teacher’s words out of my head. They seemed to stunt my growth as a poetry writer.

So, after that final poetry class, I gave up on poetry for a while. I focused on fiction and got my MSc in Creative Writing for fiction. Then I joined Vocal. I started to write poetry again because of the challenges, just to see if I could win any prizes from them. To my surprise, I did win Runner-Up with one poem, “In the Between”, for the After the Parade Challenge. So, I felt encouraged to keep writing poetry. I have only placed in one poetry Challenge since then (Honorable Mention for Poetry of the Hunt Challenge for “The Hunt of Grief”), but it has still been encouraging to have people comment on my poems and say that they actually like my poetry.

Then my mother died this past summer. Grief enveloped me, even more so than it did when my grandfather was dying, and I did not know what to do with it. So, I turned to my writing once again. And again, I turned to my poetry to express myself. Perhaps because it is quicker than writing fiction, perhaps because I can focus more on my emotions than when I am writing fiction, I do not know. Poetry just felt right. Ever since then, I have delved more and more into my poetic side, allowing it to take me over and express every thought and emotion that I have. I am gaining more confidence in my poetry writing because of the positive comments from my fellow Vocal writers/readers, and I do not think that I am going to slow down any time soon.

Does this mean that I am going to give up on fiction writing? Of course not. I still have my Elon the Alien drabbles (which might admittedly be dragging on a bit too long) and a million other ideas brewing in my mind. I just need to find one to focus on and get it written. Until then, though, I have my poetry to fall back on and express myself with, and that is enough for me.