I started a poetry writing course this week. It was a good idea, I think. Except today I’m having all sorts of rebellion against it primarily because at this point in my life I feel pretty done with education and everything that comes with it. I did not know I would feel like this prior to enrolling. I am glad I signed up though. Intuitively it feels like the right move. And I’ll definitely learn some new skills and tricks and be able to take the feedback and apply it and that’s cool. But, do I even want the feedback?

What is it for? Is what I’m asking myself today. Bigger picture, higher reason and intention behind this. I never have really thought about changing or trying to improve my poems, so what’s driving this?

I think it is to glean a little bit more about my propellor and the wind speed as well as the velocity. To know the exact direction the air is blowing here is a little tough, but there’s definitely a wind force that, I’m trying to just let “be” without searching too hard to fully know how strongly it’s going to blow or for how long and in what direction.

We do things because we enjoy them and there doesn’t have to be a reason. There are all sorts of life events that drive us closer to something while also at the same time, driving us further away from something else. That’s just the momentum of life and of growth I guess.

There are things about this course that are irking me but it’s mainly because of introverted-ness and just wanting one on one with the instructor and not to have to interact with any other students, or participate in any of the group things, like the discussions and such. The first assignment was to write about oneself and introduce ourselves to the class. And I found that exercise impossibly difficult. Writing about who I am, what I like, what I do – I couldn’t access nearly the same kind of creative juices to produce something I was even just okay with, from doing that exercise.

Writing is a lonely, (in a good way) solo sport and that’s why I love it. It’s isolating and that’s why I love it. It’s singular and that’s why I love it. It’s private, hidden (until it’s not), and it’s one of my favourite things to do with my time in whatever form.

So why sign up for a course where other writers are going to hear me, see me, feedback me, and sort of know me? Still not sure, but it’s par for the course (no pun intended) with stuff like this, no way around it really. And I am actually enjoying reading some of the other students’ poems.

The prompt for the start of this blog this past January was, an important relationship ending that had sparked a lot of intense emotion and inner turmoil as well as a transformation that came out of left field. It was as if writing was not an option now. Why? Poetry started to spew out and it was like, what? Funny how break-ups do that. But it’s more than this.

I think of all of the most wonderful poetry that’s ever been written and at least 70% or more has got to be related to some kind of heartbreak, lover entanglement or distressing or obsessive infatuation to the point of demise, kind of writing. But why? I think it’s partly because we know it’s an all too common and shared experience, and we are humans after all, looking to belong to and be a part of some sort of tribe, even if we are introverted solo natured people. Those parts of ourselves have nothing to do with the primal parts of being human.  

Writing about love brings us back to ourselves and at the same time expands the tribe.

Love and its impact. Love and its overwhelm. Love and its underwhelm. Love and its proximity. Love and its consequences. Love and its addictiveness. Love and its tight or loose parameters. Love and how it’s measured (I don’t believe it can be measured though). Love and how it’s given, how it’s shown, how it’s received. Love and how free it is. Love and how unconditional it is. Love and how binding it is. Love and how controlled by it we can get. Love and how conditional it can be. Love and how it royally fucks with your brain, while you are swimming in it and also when you’re drowning from it.

Shall I keep going? I’m almost out, but I know there’s more.

The reason I write is love. I love writing, the act itself and I love writing about love and from love. Even when we think love isn’t running our lives, it is. It is the driving force behind everything and the reason we are here.

I’m grateful for the man who is not even close to knowing the degree of impact he made on my life, for helping to inspire a further awakening, (I feel like if I awaken any more though, my third eye just may never close). An awakening that would not have occurred without him. They are right when they say that certain people are meant to show up in your life to teach you very valuable lessons and to help you become the person you are supposed to be. Even if they are only meant to be with you for a season (or nine).

When I told my poetry instructor about how I came to be writing poetry, she replied that for years she had been writing fiction and then boom, a horrible break-up and there she was, arms and legs deep in only writing personal poetry, no more fiction or short stories for her.

Love does stuff to us that we should never ignore.

I think about Shakespeare and the other love poets and I think about the students in this class, and all of us writing poems from our places and our certain states and how really, it’s all just the same. It’s pretty simplistic. I mean not all poetry is about love, but it is actually, even if the content has nothing to do with love. It’s still the love of doing and the pain of maybe writing, but it still is coming from a loving place, even if the words are cruel. It is your soul’s expression and mode for healing…for something to alter, to awaken…in that moment or in the moments after. Is there heart behind this? Of course. Is there rage, anger, sadness? Definitely. But those emotions never cancel out the ability or the power of the heart.

When you receive a bunch of external validation, approval, acceptance and appreciation (and maybe throw some infatuation and idealization in there too) and then all of a sudden it’s gone, you need to reach and rely on the reserves you have inside yourself, to provide all of that just from you. And relying too heavily (or at all) on any of that from external sources, never a good outcome. Even if you had a decent relationship with providing your own validation and such, you can still get high off of constant praise and affection and adoration when there’s a steady stream coming from something outside of you. And it can end up drowning out your own voice. And when there is a disproportionate reliance here then the result is something like, oh I don’t know, Romeo and Juliet.

I think about the level of chemical withdrawal that Shakespeare must have been feeling in order to write that play and wow, that’s some serious shit.

I still don’t want to make changes to my poems or experience constructive feedback in order to improve them. I think they are perfect just as they are. Each one holds a great meaning for me. I wrote them the way I wrote them not for validation or to impress anyone but to hear myself a little bit stronger and a little bit harder and a lot more intentionally. To see myself more clearly and to let myself know, that I am seen. To help fill a bit of a void in my life. But it turns out, voids don’t last forever and they’re not actually real to begin with. The voids exist by our own doing and they can very easily be undone and you can find your way back to yourself, to that void-less, free, and whole you.

I think that the greatest acts of love are not the ones we do for others, but are the one’s we do for ourselves. And maybe running after love is a part of loving ourselves but, choosing not to race after it or chase it, can be an even bigger part of allowing more love into our lives purely because we already have and we already are, all the love that we need. And that is something I think we only discover once we have been changed because of one or more, of the various presentations that love has made in our lives. It jolts us and it’s the undoing and recreation of ourselves as a result.

If I could give any advice to Romeo and Juliet it would be: “Don’t off yourselves just yet, this isn’t that bad.”