I know that April has come and gone so quickly. April is probably one of my favorite months for at least a couple of reasons. It is one of the first months of spring and spring is one of my favorite seasons right up there with fall. Spring is the time of year when we get out of our winter blues and it brings out all the flowers, nicer weather. Another reason why it is one of my favorite months is because it is National Poetry Month! And you know what that means for me as a poet. I honestly think that we need poetry months throughout the entire year, but that is just my personal opinion.
As many of you know by now poetry means the world to me. I came across it from a very young age. Whether it was reading everyone from Shel Silverstein to Dr Seuss and yes, I do consider them to be poets. Langston Hughes, Mary Oliver, Maya, Angelou, T. S. Elliot, Walt Whitman, etc. The list goes on and on. And as I have gotten older my repertoire of poets has increased. Everyone from Rupi Kaur, to R. H. Sin. That list goes on and on too. When I got to middle school that is when I discovered that I enjoyed writing poetry. It is when I was in 8th grade and we focused on writing poetry. I really credit Mr. Rose, my 8th grade English teacher for strongly encouraging me to write poetry.
From that moment on I was hooked on poetry. I do not know what I would do without poetry in my life. It really came and made my life better in a lot of ways. It encouraged and uplifted me. When I started off writing it was about my grandma’s experience moving from Arkansas to California and my green eyes then it evolved from there. For me poetry is deeply personal and it is like sharing a piece of my heart. Consider yourself lucky if I have shared poems with you.
I thought I would do something a little different. I thought I would share some of my favorite poets and poems. At the end of the post I will still share one of my poems. Lets kick off with some classics. Mary Oliver, Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. Let’s start off there. With Mary Oliver I’ve got to say I have some favorites. One of her poems I have come to love a lot more recently is “Wild Geese.” She has a lot of other great poems like “The Journey,” “When Death Comes,” etc. I want to take a deeper diver into her body of work. Here is her poem “Wild Geese.”
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Another one of my favorite poet is Maya Angelou. She was one of the very early on poets I started following. I would say my favorites by her include “Phenomenal Woman,” “And Still I Rise,” and “Caged Bird.” Her poems are deeply personal and amazing in general. Here is her poem “Caged Bird.”
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
As in terms of more recent poets or contemporary poets I have discovered is Rupi Kaur. I was actually very fortunate to see her in person with my best friend when Rupi came to Portland. I do not know how I initially came across her. I think I kept on seeing her poetry come onto my feed on Instagram and then I started reading more of her work. A lot of her work is deeply personal and in a lot of ways I found myself relating to what she was writing. I would say I have a lot of favorite pieces by her. Everything from “legacy,” to “you are too late,” “the underrated heartache” and “friendship nostalgia.” She writes what people consider to be Instapoetry. The poems you see constantly on Instagram. I like how she does poetry and drawings. She is super talented in that way and that makes her stand out. Here is her poem “friendship nostalgia” that makes me think of my best friend who I went with when I saw Rupi Kaur read her poems in person. I love you so much Marcia.
i miss the days my friends
knew every mundane detail about my life
and i knew every ordinary detail about theirs
that us
the walks around the block
The long conversations when we were
too lost in the moment to care what time it was
when we won and celebrated
when we failed and celebrated harder
when we were just kids
now we have our very important jobs
that fill up our very busy schedules
we compare calendars just to plan coffee dates
that one of us eventually cancels
cause adulthood is being too exhausted
to leave our apartments most days
i missing knowing i once belonged
to a group of people bigger than myself
that belonging made life easier to live
Okay, I know this post is super long, but bear with me. I am featuring one final poet R. H. Sin. And I know that he is a poet I have not talked about before. I would group him into the the same category as Rupi Kaur. I think I started coming across his work on Instagram. I would consider it the Instapoetry category. His work is deeply personal too. A lot of his poems are short and simplistic, but he still gets his words across. He has a lot of poems I like and a lot of them are featured on his Instagram. I cannot name any of them, but I will still share of my favorites that I came across more recently. Here it is.
You see, here’s the thing. Anyone who expects
you to settle for the bare minimum that they are
seemingly only capable of giving will never truly
love you in the way your heart needs and
deserves. I know it’s so easy to choose or go
back to what feels familiar but if that feeling is
not something that makes you feel completely
loved and genuinely desired then it’s time to do
something different.
Old roads will not lead you to something better
and the people who are comfortable with
providing less will never match your effort or be
in a position to do more of what you need.
This year is about releasing what no longer
belongs in your life. This year is about freeing
yourself from the chains of settling for less than
you deserve.
I hope that you can get a glimpse into why I love poetry. It is something that be so deeply personal. I love sharing poetry whether it is from one of my favorite poets or one of my own. It is a special bond and I am lucky enough to share that bond with my own friends and family, including my mom and closest friends. I remember I struggled with a poetry class I took in college because we had to share poems and we would critique each other’s work. Like I have said before, a lot of my poetry I write is deeply personal and to have people look at that and critique it was challenging. I remember everything from writing about my grandpa’s death to writing an elegy for my dad’s friend who died. We had different subjects to talk about from childhood memories to other things. My favorite parts was sending them to my mom for her feedback because I trusted what she had to say. In a lot of ways that helped us become closer. On that note I will share one of my own poems that I wrote a lot more recently. Cheers and I hope that you have enjoyed this post as much as I have.
Poetry as a Lifeline
You gave me a clean conscious and slate
To start over again. It is like everything in
My mind and things piled high on my plate
Have suddenly disappeared. You have been
There constantly through the highs, lows
And everything in between. You gave me
Every breath and you gave me every rose
When all of mine faded and died. You see
Me standing there and made me realize
That I am never alone. You are my lifeline
Day in and day out. You made me alive
When I am barely there. Like a skyline
Above my head you are there on every
Single page being the closest thing I got
To perfection. You see every core memory
I choose to share like a diary entry. I forgot
What life was like without you. So to you
I am grateful. You make my heart less blue.
Tag: mary oliver
Mary Oliver Tribute
As I became older in age I also became a huge fan of Mary Oliver. Her work is simple, but also very rich. I just wanted to write a post dedicated to her since she recently passed away. I have a few of her books, but one of my favorite poems in hers is called “The Journey,” which goes like this:
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.
I wrote a poem that is a spin off of that poem, but before I share it with you I wanted to explain more why she is one of my favorites. I love a lot of her poems, but she also paved the way for the next generation of writers and poets. She shares her wisdom and she makes me become a better poet. There are so many of her quotes that are quite amazing, but there is one or two that stick out to me. The first one is, “So tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one and precious life?” In that quote she asks us what we are going to do because we only have one life and we each have a different plan/path to follow. The second quote is, “For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” In other words, poems are not just simply words, but they are something that is necessary and essential for everyone. They almost always bring some sense of hope. That is what I like about Mary Oliver. She is someone who provides that hope and fire. I love that her pieces focus on nature too.
So here is that poem that I wrote in tribute to Mary Oliver. It is also a poem I submitted for a competition on DUP and won runner-up for it. Wherever you are Mary Oliver, I hope you rest in peace. I strongly encourage all of my readers to read her work. I know that you will not regret it.
The Journey (After Mary Oliver)
The journey starts with one small step. It is one step into the world
Where the tides and waves all rush to meet at your feet as you walk
In the sand on the beach’s shoreline, following endless words curled
On forgotten pages. Above all the endless noise, chatter and the talk
Of those around you is where you begin to find your bearings. It is
When you see the stars and you are away from the advice of a hawk
You find your voice. You want someone else to come fix and un-fizz
Your life like the aftermath of a chaotic storm or glass of champagne,
But it starts within you. You pried and took the truth from her or his
Delicate fingers. They may blame it on the wind because with the rain
It knocks everything sideways and makes everything damp, but you
Have to do what you needed to do all along. The naked truth may stain
Their souls, making them yell why? But someday when the sky is blue
Again they will understand that it was all a part of the journey. It was
All a part to saving one life, which is only yours. It may echo through
The empty house that might tremble like an earthquake, but the buzz
Finally clears and you stand there with the answers that make sense.
It is like all the overgrowing weeds and the clouds that used to cause
Worry has disappeared into the surrounding atmosphere. The fence
That separates you from the rest of the world has crumbled into ash.
It is like life’s naysayers, worries and doubts are all in the past tense
Because what happened in the past has no place in the now. You dash
Into the pouring rain so you can feel alive and to hear something other
Than the voices that live in your head. There are days when you crash
And burn, but you still keep going on with one step at a time to another
Fork in the road. Where should you go? Whichever way gets you further.