shining a light with poetry

Don’t let this face fool you. I’m a rebel even if my only rebellion has come by way of poetry. I was raised to think not only that I couldn’t share many words, but that I literally had none. I believed that for a long and tiresome time because I got busy parroting other people’s words. But, I also learned that if I played guitar and dressed things up in a song, I could get away with having words of my own. So I rebelled and wrote, in time realizing that lyrics were poetry (duh!), but also that poetry was a safe place to hold those words.

After writing my way out of that dark place I was drawn to the light that came next…

Turns out poetry was and is one of the best ways to heal. It gave me the chance to express some brutal truths while finding my way through them. It provided a creative way to capture beauty in the midst of chaos and see light coming through cracks. These days I care most about tipping the scales toward the words we are all dying to say and longing to hear…that doesn’t seem that radical but somehow it’s becoming more so all the time. The now late poet Nikki Giovanni said that while she accidentally had a couple of poetry bestsellers in her lifetime “all poets are really trying to do is just tell the truth”. Who knew that could make a rebel out of me?!

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