How I wrote my first poem (and what led me to write it).
The question of why people write poetry is something that I consider often. Is it the catharsis and sense of release that comes from telling the truth, the need for us as human beings to understand and communicate our feelings, or simply the need to be creative? What’s the motivation?
I wrote my first poem as a 21-year-old during his first year in university. At the time, I had returned to my studies after taking a year out to decide what I actually wanted to do. During this time, I managed to improve my skills at the guitar, watch a lot of movies, and volunteer at my local charity shop, but I never found an answer to my question. When I arrived back at university, I had to join halfway through the year, which meant that I didn’t know anyone in my classes. This added to the sense of isolation that I was feeling at the time and further added to the idea that the year out was a mistake.
However, something good did come out of that feeling – namely, my discovery of poetry.
Photo by Quinton Coetzee on Unsplash
I first discovered my love of poetry through finding spoken-word channels on YouTube. These are channels that feature poems spoken over a video, which often illustrates the feelings that the poems are trying to convey. I spent many nights alone listening away, burying my loneliness in the words of Elizabeth Bishop, Charles Bukowski, and Pablo Neruda. I would have stayed in my perfect trance-like isolation if I could, but I was at university, and that meant that I had assignments to do.
The first assignment of the year got me out of my room and made me go to the campus library, where I looked for books to help me prepare for the paper. When I entered the building, I saw two people I hadn’t seen in a while. They were students that I was living with when I started my course before I took a break. I was too shy to say hi to them, and so I looked away as we passed each other, which left a feeling of mutual embarrassment lingering in the air.
After finishing up in the library, I went back to my dorm but was left feeling uneasy by the encounter. So, that night, I did what I always do when I’m feeling anxious: I opened my phone. But this time, instead of opening up a spoken-word video, I opened up a Notes page and wrote this:
A Young Poem
I have the temptation,
Sometimes,
To open the door in the dead of night and walk outside,
And to keep walking,
Perhaps coming to a river,
Where I would lay and sometimes drink,
Until the elements consume me,
That fate would be as good as anything,
I have a soul that can imagine the truest of loves,
The artifice of success,
And hubris of age,
Why lie,
When it’s truer to stand in the thickened rain,
Than lull again at the soft melody of the sun,
I have a soul that pains and expands,
Red,
It leaks from my eyes,
And onto my dying lips.
(This is exactly how the poem reads on my phone to this day; I have not edited it).
Who knows whether it was the sense of isolation, dejection, or loneliness I felt that caused it, but this moment marked the first time that I had ever written a poem (well, in my adult life, anyway). Writing is strange like that: it can come from unexpected scenarios and take you by surprise, and for me, this poem marked one of the most surprising and remarkable moments in my writing career. Since writing it, I have often struggled to write poems in the same way, often relying on techniques or structures to write in, and poems I have written since have never come to me as organically.
But I digress.
So, this brings me back to my question: Why do people write poetry?
Well, for some, it may be the need to express their emotions or to lament a feeling that they had at a certain time that can only be relived through writing a poem. Or it may act as an escape from one's loneliness, sadness, or even self-imposed isolation (Bukowski was famously a hermit).
But for me, I think it was about something personal. I think I was trying to explain a new feeling to myself that could maybe only be understood by examining it in writing. And judging from the fact that I felt much better after writing the poem, I’m guessing that it worked.
Ever since that moment, my obsession with poetry has gotten stronger, and I often write poetry whenever I’m feeling confused or overwhelmed. I find that it helps me to explore my emotions and focus on specifically what is bothering me at the time when just thinking alone doesn’t suffice.
What do you think about poetry? Have you ever written a poem, and if so, do you think it helps channel your feelings?
Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading,
Oliver