Plague, Poetry and Compassion for my 15-Year-Old Self
I'm bored and antsy and anxious and apparently not so great at this staying home thing. And so I'm trying to use my virus induced hiatus from work and the world, productively. This morning, when I found myself awake (again) at 3am, I thought, "Okay, well I can update the poetry notebook." The poetry notebook was begun when I started writing poetry at age fifteen. Originals were written on scraps of paper and receipts and napkins and in the margins of notebooks. I typed them on an ancient Royal typewriter. I wrote them at school and in restaurants and bars and libraries and at work. Then regardless of the original format, I would painstakingly, chronologically write them by hand into a notebook. Eventually the notebook got added to a binder. Eventually other notebooks got added to the binder.
The binder has gone to college, been hauled through moves, been dragged out to share and lived within arms reach for years and years. If my family and pets were all safe, it's the one thing I would think to grab in a fire. But the binder itself, which was salvaged from an early job, was old to begin with. It's extremely been well-loved and well-read and coming apart in many places by now. It's time to type all these poems out on my laptop. Maybe make a book of them someday although it seems like nobody much reads poetry these days.
I understand that we are often not the best judges of our own work. However, I have also evolved enough as a writer to see that some of these early poems are down right awful. Yet, I also know that just because I think they're terrible, doesn't mean that someone else might not find meaning in them. And this is supposed to represent a body of work, not just a handful of poems that I think will reflect my writing skill in the best possible light.
Still, I struggle. I struggle to like these poems when they seem trite or contrived. After all, no one is born a good writer. Good writing takes practice. I cannot dismiss these poems out of hand. I do not become a better writer without building on these foundations. I am working on finding some compassion for these poems. I am also working on finding compassion for fifteen year old me. I want to shake her and ask, "really?". Not only was she sometimes desperate for a rhyme, she seemed to think she knew a lot about love and loss and humanity and heartbreak. I want to say, "You ain't seen nuthin' kid." We know what we know. Sometimes, we can't possibly know more because we aren't ready to know more
But I can't really judge these poems or 15 year old me too harshly. Fifteen year old me knew what she knew. Just because she hadn't the depth of experience that I have now, doesn't mean her words weren't heartfelt and honest and raw even if her technique could use a little refining. Andrea Dykstra said, "In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you."
So I carry on. I continue to type, slowly but surely working my way through what is surely close to 2,000 poems. Should anyone ever care to read them all, I can hope that they will see a growth. A continued evolution. And besides, it's giving me something to do.
The binder has gone to college, been hauled through moves, been dragged out to share and lived within arms reach for years and years. If my family and pets were all safe, it's the one thing I would think to grab in a fire. But the binder itself, which was salvaged from an early job, was old to begin with. It's extremely been well-loved and well-read and coming apart in many places by now. It's time to type all these poems out on my laptop. Maybe make a book of them someday although it seems like nobody much reads poetry these days.
I understand that we are often not the best judges of our own work. However, I have also evolved enough as a writer to see that some of these early poems are down right awful. Yet, I also know that just because I think they're terrible, doesn't mean that someone else might not find meaning in them. And this is supposed to represent a body of work, not just a handful of poems that I think will reflect my writing skill in the best possible light.
Still, I struggle. I struggle to like these poems when they seem trite or contrived. After all, no one is born a good writer. Good writing takes practice. I cannot dismiss these poems out of hand. I do not become a better writer without building on these foundations. I am working on finding some compassion for these poems. I am also working on finding compassion for fifteen year old me. I want to shake her and ask, "really?". Not only was she sometimes desperate for a rhyme, she seemed to think she knew a lot about love and loss and humanity and heartbreak. I want to say, "You ain't seen nuthin' kid." We know what we know. Sometimes, we can't possibly know more because we aren't ready to know more
But I can't really judge these poems or 15 year old me too harshly. Fifteen year old me knew what she knew. Just because she hadn't the depth of experience that I have now, doesn't mean her words weren't heartfelt and honest and raw even if her technique could use a little refining. Andrea Dykstra said, "In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you."
So I carry on. I continue to type, slowly but surely working my way through what is surely close to 2,000 poems. Should anyone ever care to read them all, I can hope that they will see a growth. A continued evolution. And besides, it's giving me something to do.
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