Artist’s Statement

Do you know what swirls around in my head the most? Words. From being a little kid, staying up way past my bedtime to read books by moonlight, to studying literature as a graduate student, I have always been drawn to words. There are just so many words. Poetry itself was a beautiful mystery to me up until this year. I had dabbled in reading the greats, studied a bit of the Romantics, but it was finally my turn. I let all those swirling words inside my brain drip out one by one, and they are still flowing in droves. I didn’t expect the act of writing poetry to be so intoxicating. Why I never let myself write poetry before this class, I’ll never know. Now that the floodgates have been opened, I am quite insatiable. I promise I’m not exaggerating. When I begin a poem, I tug on whatever string of emotion is affecting me most. Maybe it’s a memory, heavy with nostalgia, or some innate fear for the future. The settings of my poems usually end up materializing out of my experiences in the outdoors, when I either felt those feelings in full force, or was able to let them go and get in the zone. I often end up in the mountains, on a peak somewhere in the Sierras, in the desert of Joshua Tree, or along a river in Big Sur. I hope to transport my readers to these places as best I can - to bring the smells of the flowers, the soft touch of the breeze, the sharpness of the granite to their fingertips. Not only do I want my readers to feel present there, but to be given a taste of the feelings that can be felt in those places. I hope to bring complexity to outdoor experiences, where one can be thinking of climate change, motherhood, loss, life, love, fear, what they ate for breakfast, what art means to them, all at once. Humanity is not that simple. I love when it all comes crashing together in a salty, sunny, muddy, tangled mess. 

My poetry has evolved, I admit, in the way I expected it to. The words I’ve held onto in my head for so long, it made sense they would tumble out in the free flowing way. When I began writing for this course, simply rhymes felt familiar, but not necessarily comfortable. I started there, but discovered very quickly it did not feel like my own voice. I wanted to find that rhythm that sounded so melodious when other students read their poems aloud in class. This led to softening my approach with less rules on rhyme or structure or lineation. I played with enjambment, lower case sentences, less punctuation, and slant rhymes. Poetry became fun - a game I got to make up the rules for, and continue to break them, and still “win.” I think of winning the game of poetry as merely a personal satisfaction with the piece - to be able to close the notebook, sigh, and think, “I’m happy with that.” The more unexpected aspect of my poetry evolution was the emotion. I thought I’d spend more time writing about wild outdoor places, my rock climbing experiences, the flowers I love finding. I ended up weaving heavy anecdotes within those poems - experiences of loss, memory, identity, and change. I tried not to be embarrassed when tears fell in globs after I read “spirit of” in front of the class. Writing the poem itself was a cathartic exercise; reading it aloud to who were essentially strangers was entirely different. It made the poem real and living then, and that was the moment that I felt like I became a poet. 

I’m most proud of the poems I wrote later in the quarter, as my voice had found a cadence I was quite happy with. Sonic texture became a mild obsession, and I’d sit at my desk writing poems for the next week’s module, whispering collections of words to myself and seeing how the felt in my ears. From this class, my favorite of my poems is “private property.” I spent the most time on it out of any other piece, and I felt myself pouring out over it. My anxieties over motherhood, the dismantling of our national parks and public lands, and my subtle guilt over my departure from climbing, all amassed into this one poem. I was immensely proud of how it turned out, and even more so upon my multiple revisions. This poem felt like me. It didn’t necessarily feel like a protest poem, but it still felt powerful; I wanted to communicate that a single person can feel these things - fear, empowerment, strength, anger, pressure, regret, shame, and bravery - all at once. Some emotions we may not even have words for, and I hope my poetry communicates the complexity of that. Sometimes nature has to speak for us. Or it acts as a vehicle for us to communicate something unrelated. Similar to Geoffrey Brock’s poem, “Parable,” I enjoy the challenge of writing about outdoor activities that everyone may not be able to relate to, but connect it to other emotions and experiences, such as emerging from a dark, wet winter and finally getting outside, or the prize of an ice cream cone. It can be difficult to discuss something that has a technical component - like cycling - and not make it seem robotic or dull. The other collection we read, Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves, was a bit more difficult but still plenty inspiring. The poem I remember the most was one that we critiqued in class - “The Alphabet, for Naima.” Although the execution felt a bit off, as we had discussed (especially the alphabet ending before “s”), I enjoyed the mix of playfulness and seriousness in the poem. I was motivated to try a similar mix of tone in my poems. I did try out writing an abecedarian poem, and although I have not finished it, it was a unique exercise to try to emulate. 

During the weeks with our Working Anthologies, I found myself drawn to reading poems that were written in styles I had no plan to reproduce, but I could use as inspiration anyway. One of my favorites was when Sydney read “Advice to the Able-Bodied Poet Entering the Disability Poetics Workshop” by Liv Mammone. The list poem style is not a style that I enjoy writing in - right now, anyway - but it provided a distinct inspiration that allowed me to view the world from a different perspective. I think I enjoy reading poems that don’t reflect my own style or voice because I know I won’t try to mimic them. Same goes for solid rhyming poems, which I’ve decided is not the style for me. Back during week 5, Allie shared a Robert Frost poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” It’s a beautifully simple poem, with neat rhymes: gold/hold, flower/hour, leaf/grief, day/stay. It’s lovely, and I get a warm feeling when I read it, and although I know I won’t try to echo the style in my own writing, it still inspires me to explore rhythm and themes of color and nature. 

In ten short weeks, I somehow became a poet. The biggest step was putting those swirling words down on paper, and the revising steps felt almost as large. I’ve unlocked a new superpower, a new way of communicating with the world, and for that, I am grateful. I thank the universe that I now have an endless supply of poetry to read and glean inspiration from, and I hope my pen never runs out of ink, and my brain never stops filling with words that I can continue placing on a page.