A poet. I believe in the heart of poetry…it can translate a dimension of experience in a way that brings me in a matter of few words right to my knees. Capturing a universal human experience through a precise image is a remarkable art.
What feels funny to me still…after all these years of writing poetry…is declaring myself a poet. It seems so lofty up there in the rarified air of poets. But the truth is that it is the grunt work of writing…the honing of words, the exactness, the chopping and switching and re-envisioning of an image or idea. At the heart of all good writing is the manipulation and artistry of words producing meaning…that is poetry for me.
I firmly believe that the best writers in the world are poets despite the surface genre. It may look like a novel, it may look like marketing ad, it may look like an essay, but beneath it, if it really works, is the artistry of poetry. A writer grabs her audience and hammers home an idea with the force of a saber across the chest IF she has genuinely crafted words that convey sensory exactness. It is an exciting moment when the words evoke what you had been feeling in your sense of purpose about the piece you have written. What a feeling that is.
Facility with words doesn’t come easily. It comes with a lifetime of practice. We keep tweaking and learning about what phrase conjures up an image and an emotion. We monkey with words. We experiment with phrases. We try them out on our friends. We laser them to our foes. We never quit searching for just the right word.
I love being a writer. I love the power it has to transport me to a higher plane that feels right somehow. Perhaps this comes because I was the 4th of 5 kids and getting my voice in the air was sometimes pretty darned tough. “Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” a mantra from my father taught me to squelch my words. At the same time from a different voice, that of my mama, came “speak your mind but mind your speech.” I thank them both for pointing out that language holds power. Ahhh, the background of a lifetime English teacher.
The best writing for me comes after I’ve been muddling through correspondence. That is to say, I start with letters. They ease me into the frame of mind, into the mode it takes for me to begin writing pieces that I really care about. I start with a letter to my sister and end up in the midst of a poem. It works for me. Usually.
My growing up days provide me endless topics. Life on the farm. Life with a seriously alcoholic father. Life with a loving and nurturing mother. Life with four siblings. Life with critters and the outdoors as part of a daily existence. Life without plumbing. I have found that all the crappy things that happen to me are just great fodder for good writing. So, as much as I’d like life to be peachy and sweet, I embrace the crapola and head to the blank pages, filling them with my take on the world. I morph my experience into things that lie far beyond my own life. Truth can be stranger than fiction. The way words have unfolded in poems about nuclear waste, about a lying rat bastard ex, about ice cracking and moaning on the lake, about Orion and its mythological origin….all those words crafted into poetry have helped me organize my take on what otherwise may well have brewed viral in the back of my mind.
My first recognition of the power of writing came when I was in first grade and learning how to write. I started early with letters to Judy, my oldest sister away at Mizzou, and the expectation of her letters in return were so motivational that I can’t imagine not asking kids to write letters. It was hugely powerful. I knew I could write and be heard. I knew I could write and get letters in return. I knew my sister wanted to hear what I had to say about the ducks, the farm, my sisters, my life while she was away at school. Amen for that and the stamps that Mama put on every one of those letters.
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