On Poetry

I may be many things but I don't think I've ever self-identified as a poet before. I don't really read much poetry either but, as corny as this sounds, I see poetry wherever I go, just not in word form. 

I'm sure there are whole classes taught on the question: "What is poetry?" Just like all those classes I attended that discussed "What is art?" I'm not too sure what the definition of poetry is. If I had to define it from my ignorant state, I guess I'd say something along the lines of: "Words that want to be strung together in a meaningful and pleasing way to create a mood." But I guess that's not really right. Some poems are not supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy, they have an entirely different purpose, like the beautiful poem by Malaika Uwamahoro about the genocide in Rwanda. Also I guess poetry is as much about the spaces in between the words and the words that aren't there as much as anything else. Hm. 

In my art practice I am merely a middle [wo]man between a feeling or spark of inspiration and a created "something" that will eventually live in the world. I don't feel like I'm some grand creator. I just feel like certain feelings, memories, experiences and images want or need to be made into objects. That's where I come in and so many others do too.

As I said, I'm not a poet and I don't pretend to be one on the internet. But I'm oddly drawn to poetry in a way I can't understand. It thrills me and it feels like trying to catch smoke. I'm probably not the first one to say these things, but again, I'm ignorant to poetry's history. Sometimes I just write things and I feel like "Poem" is the best way to describe them. It feels liberating to write poems. It feels romantic and unique somehow. It feels like something I'm not supposed to do, like I'm being dissonant, not correcting the grammar (not that I'm particularly good at that), leaving the words all strung out to try to describe something indescribable.

All over the world and through the ages poetry has been used in so many different ways. Poems can uplift, consummate, explain and enlighten. Poems can set souls free. Poetry is so beautiful and multidimensional. I’m just scratching the surface but I want to go deeper. I have wept at artists reading their poems. I have felt humbled by poets who have been through some of the most horrific things a human can bear. Poetry can heal.

Recently I wrote a poem-like composition about my experience driving through the wake of Hurricane Michael in Florida, Alabama and Georgia. I felt like disjointed words and phrases were the only way to really capture my experience of seeing so much destruction. I was on my way to a music festival that my family and I have been going to for seventeen years. The park where it is held was outside of the range of the storm and we decided that we would keep our plans and go to camp and spend time with our family there.

I felt so many emotions as we made our way to our mini vacation, passing through so many areas that had just lost everything. I felt so strange and so guilty. For me, writing is a way to come to peace with things, so after a few days I composed the following.

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Untitled

Sawed off trees,

"underpopulated" areas aren't up to code, 

there's no more barn. 

Debris, debris and more debris. 

Is that a roof? 

Guilt and gratitude equally. 

It missed us... but I have flashbacks to Ivan. 

The smell of that black powder you get wet to heat up your chicken tetrazzini. 

The Forest is gone and so are the pecans. 

It was harvest time 

but they'll try again in five years. 

All of these sights for a tradition. 

A vacation. 

You see, we drove 

the usually-four-hour-ten-hour-drive 

to go camping. 

We drove to Georgia to get to East Florida. 

Fleets of cops. 

100 year old trees ripped out by the root. 

Like the landscape just got waxed. 

Got whacked. 

Disbelief. 

We drove through mud and branches. 

Tried so many routes and turned around. 

Blocked roads. 

Blocked dreams. 

No water. 

No power. 

No house.

The cows were still grazing.

We made it through. 

After frazzled, stressed vibes for ten hours, 

eleven with the time change 

we made it. 

We and tons of others found 

the only gas for hours. 

The Piggly Wiggly. 

Gas lines long, 

but we continued our trek. 

Our trek to the Suwannee. 

I swam in that thing twice that weekend. 

Feeling filled up and emptied 

by the sweet tea colored water. 

They say minerals make it that color. 

When you open your eyes at three feet under 

the blackness and chill is all encompassing. 

When you look toward the surface 

the water looks blood red. 

Seventeen years I been swimmin' in that river. 

But getting there 

was never like that before. 

Cycles of time. 

Years and years. 

Inches and Inches grown, 

of ginger babes 

and ginger hair. 

Grown out 

and chopped 

like all those damn trees. 

Hard to believe life sometimes, 

as trite as that sounds. 

Michael wasn't an angel this time. 

Almost all my people made it to camp.

We danced barefoot, 

we drank sangria 

we closed our eyes 

and poured one out 

for Panama City Beach, 

Mexico Beach 

and all the folks in between. 

Gettin' home there were still places runnin' on generators. 

Still places ran out of gas. 

I had banjos and fiddles in my ears 

while insurance adjusters dealt out news. 

I was grounded in dirt 

and ground down by the sights, 

the overwhelming emotions. 

Traumatic even as just an onlooker. 

It missed us this time. 

Oh the guilt. 

Oh the gratitude. 

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Thank you for reading. I don’t feel like my writing is spectacular or anything but it feels good to at least be interacting with the world and trying to express myself in some way. I look forward to discovering more poetry in my life and hopefully having discussions about it too. Cheers and see you out there folks.