Location: My Neighborhood
Thought: Beautiful, Painful, Poem-Truths
I’m a writer—that’s what I tell everyone—but here’s a truth that brings me a bit of shame and imposter syndrome: I hate writing poetry.
Why I Hate Writing Poetry
Writing poetry is hard.
It’s challenging, and then after I’ve fought my way through stanzas, I look back at them and don’t like what I see.
But you know, one day in my undergrad poetry writing class my professor defined poetry in a way that makes everything better:
Once you master the rules, or the limitations, you can learn to be free despite them.
That, he claimed, was the beauty in poetry.
Poems stay with people because there’s something more to them than pretty words. The skill and artistry arises from the poet’s ability to work around strictly limiting rules— despite them and because of them.
I begrudgingly respected the philosophy and find myself returning to it to re-evaluate what makes a beautiful poem, and how I can approach life like one.
The Gift of a Beautiful Poem
I used to think that the beauty in poems came from their quasi-magical, superhuman ability to touch upon a truth in life in a unique way. A poem-truth.
This, I thought, was a gift given to the artist like inspiration cast from ethereal muses and not something that a normal person could relate to. Through this explanation, I could rationalize and accept how some other, better person could do it, but I could not. That way, I “saved myself” from having to try and experiencing pain.
I regarded writing as detached from the human experience because this is how I initially used reading and writing— as a way to escape myself.
The First Time I Fell in Love with Words - on page
1. The first time that words gave me life was when they helped me escape pain through stories. Life was life, but words — here was the beauty missing from life; here was what was better than life. In stories, perfection existed. I chose escapism over hard truths and fed the hedonist in me.
That explains why I don’t like writing poems: I don’t like things that are “too difficult” for me to do.
Things I Really Don’t Like
Painful feelings.
Doing work when I’m unable to see its purpose beyond its challenges.
The fact that the best tasting food is not healthy for my body at this time (each body is different, no nutrient is bad)
Not feeling safe
The fact that I have to make money
Often, I choose to be grumpy about these sorts of things or ignore them entirely.
But poetry doesn’t take an easy approach. A beautiful poem contains all of these nasty elements, plus more!
Poem-truths are always partially heartbreaking— that is, they convey a sadness. That’s because poems are created within a restrictive framework that generates struggle and thus are constantly in conversation with the challenges of being human. They’re not above the human condition as I thought, but rather excel from its acceptance.
The Second Time I Fell in Love with Words - in song
2. The second time that words gave me life was when they brought me closer to pain through poetry. I had gotten so good at avoiding poetry that it took rap literally shouting it at me to listen. Words, through skill, elevated human performance to instruments’ level of artistry at the peak of auditory limitations. Rap was so impressive to me that it pushed me to listen to other instruments and music as a whole beyond how nice it sounds. The better I listen to music, the deeper I love it.
Music is a more immersive platform than a page to be guided into. Classic poetry talks about how godlike nature and romance are, detaching me as the reader from my humanity. Poems in song talk about how fucking unfair life is, particularly for some. But rap puts these poem-truths within the setting of music — affirming, replenishing sound sporting with instruments, bird-like in its freedom.
Rhythm and poetry in music reminds me to love this condition of being human because it shows me that artistry does not come from the heavens, but comes from grappling with life until you can exude some level of grace about the whole matter.
Self Tough Love Time - a requested addition to the Mental Health Inventory alongside Self Care
Disliking painful feelings—or numbing them out with substances or distractions—doesn’t do jack-shit to stop the feelings or make them hurt less. Playing in a perfect literary universe doesn’t heal my human shame.
Life doesn’t care what I think about it, so an unwilling approach to life only affects me. Life will continue to do its badass job: hurling shit for us to misconstrue as gifts or curses. When I shut off my mind to difficulty or suffer over details outside of my control, I continue to actively harm myself after the harm has been done.
OR, I can listen to my poetry professor. I can redirect what little control I have in a productive way to open wider channels of growth and opportunity.
If I understand a system and its limitations— why they’re in place and what they seek to gain— as well as I understand myself and my motivators, then I can a) reduce my frustration with a little empathy and b) use the system to advance my goals and better connect with the world I’m living in.
Consider this example/digression: Energy Company X has unethical environmental management and a monopoly on the market - in other words, it’s not going anywhere.
Buying Out: Some people boycott this company in hopes that the company will see that some people are upset and lose some money. Companies this big have many ways to replace that money.
Buying In: Other people buy shares of this company. In the next board meeting, the majority share-owners are environmentalists who now have the power to change company policy from the inside. This both solves the problem and grows the company so that it has more capital to introduce bigger solutions.
You see? This is cool, right! Are you starting to see?
Digression over. What I mean to say is, working through a system more powerful than oneself can create something that others might wonder at as a freak of human accomplishment, when really it came about from approaching limitations with acceptance and an open mind instead of rejecting them as a job fit for somebody more capable.
I’m still not a poet or a rapper.
But I’m trying my damndest to approach situations like poetry would: speaking with rather than against whatever the struggle may be to find the love and beauty within it. And when there is none, bringing the love and beauty to it.
I was afraid that balancing out idealism with realism would detract from what I find beautiful in life, but it turns out that humans (Including me! Including you! Everyone is included!) are beautiful and worthy of love, and realism introduces empathy, which always enhances.
Hey, you. Thanks for reading all the way to the end. That means a lot to me. If you haven’t already subscribed to the email list, give it a lil’ consideration. And if you do already get this as an email, consider sharing with a lil’ friend. Or you know what? I’m fine either way and I appreciate you. Make good choices. How about that for an action item.