THE DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE OF POETRY

How poetry has had a positive impact on my emotional health, and has boosted my creativity.

I’ve been writing lots of poetry lately, and it’s been a delightful revelation. Until early this year, the last time I properly listened to a poem was probably when my mother read T.S. Eliot’s Old Possums Book of Practical Cats when I was about six. I’ve just ordered Old Possums and can’t wait to rediscover the collection. Now that I’ve developed something of an obsession for poetry, it’s hard for me to fathom that it never registered on my radar until so recently. I always associated “grown up” poetry with obscure philosophical intellectuals, when I now know that it can be joyous, goofy and creatively liberating!

I recently bought Grant Snider’s Poetry Comics, a poet and illustrator I discovered on Substack, which is gorgeous (great for kids, too!), as well as a collection called Happy Poems, chosen by Roger McGough, which contains some wonderfully wacky ones. I love both books!

Poetry came to me via Beth Kempton’s word prompts towards the end of 2023. I hadn’t been well for a while, and depression was dragging me down. I felt increasingly adrift and was having a hard time focusing on writing anything of any length. When I started doing Beth’s “tiny winter poem” challenge, I found myself waiting impatiently each day for her to give the “word” du jour.

There were days where the word would resonate, when I’d bound straight in, completing the poem in five minutes, or ten, or whatever the set time frame was, and others where I’d think, “oh bloody hell, seriously?” and put it off for later. These were the days I’d then find myself “cheating”, spending far longer than I was “supposed to” on my poem. But since I obviously wasn’t going to get into any sort of trouble, and because playing around with the word, and creating something satisfactory with it made me feel better, I rolled with it.

I’m not going to lie and tell you that poetry lifted me out of my depression. I needed medical help for that. But writing poems gave my mind something to play with, something bite sized that didn’t feel overwhelming when everything else did.

Once the tiny winter poem challenge was over, I kept going on my own. Then, when Beth did the tiny spring poem challenge, I did that, and once it was over I again kept writing them, day after day.  In the space of a few months I’ve written 110 poems! Some are tiny, some are quite long, some are dark. Most are happy, some are pretty crap, and some I’m really, really proud of!

Most importantly, every single one of my poems has served me on an emotional level. And while poetry is way off what I would assume “my target audience” would be if I were only concentrating on attracting readers to my romcom, or stirring up interest in the novel I’m currently writing, I believe that each one of my poems is a tiny, sparkly glimpse into my soul, and that the flavour of my words will be the same, whether I write poetry, a romcom, a drama, a romance, whatever. My poems feel like little messages in bottles, sent out to be found and enjoyed (or not…), before continuing on their gentle journey for someone else to chance upon.

Ororo Monroe left me a comment yesterday saying that my funny Space Cadet poem read like a romance story, and when I went back to read it again I realised he was right. It even felt like it could be an outline for something longer. I love that the lines can be blurred, that one thing can lead to another! It’s exhilarating!

Aren’t words just wonderful?