Daring to Love: A Poet's Purpose
Who comes to mind when I ask, “Who’s your favorite writer, author, poet?” Why are they your favorite? For me, for the longest time, I was unable to answer this question. I thought it was so cool when I’d hear folx reference a writer and their works by name, and wondered why I wasn’t there yet. Then I read Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, and I said to myself, “THIS was written for me!”
I was blown away! Brown’s words seemed to perfectly elaborate upon a reality that I previously only thought existed within my personal fantasies. All while drawing on nature’s existing strategies as evidence of what we as humans have the potential to do as change-makers and impactors of our reality, interwoven with beautiful poems and magical spells and dialogue.
To give you a snippet, in her introduction, Brown walks us through the concept of emergent strategy, defining each word as an individual, then the concept as a whole. She references biomimicry: “the imitation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems” as inspiration of the core principles she developed and expanded upon. Providing examples from mycelium, ants, ferns, and wavicles.
Here’s a cool example: mycelium—the largest organism on earth—is the underground growth of fungus which interconnects their roots and breaks down plant material, creating healthier ecosystems. From mycelium we learn of interconnectedness, remediation, and detoxification.
Pure beauty and genius! To use one’s observations of nature to formulate a practical, realistic playbook full of organizational strategies we humans can use in our daily lives and implement in our larger communities. Phenomenal!
On the topic of genius, shaping change and changing worlds—the stuff of poets. Brown and I share an affinity for the genius mind of bell hooks, whose thought-provoking trilogy: Love Song to the Nation, inspired this article. While I’m not diving deep into Brown’s work here, hooks and Brown have become, for me now, people whose being and works I often reference by name.
Both writers draw from their lived experiences and observations in their written exploration of what it means, and can look like, to seek liberation and justice in a collaborative, conscious, honest, and loving way.
The Poet and The Poem
Now, you might be wondering what any of this has to do with the world of poetry. I’ll tell you. Interacting with the first book of the series, All About Love: New Visions, I began to ponder hooks’s ideas about purpose, specifically what purpose means to us, as writers, poets, and artists.
In All About Love, hooks invites us to reevaluate our relationship with love, including our held definitions and practices, or our lack thereof. For instance, how many of us misconstrue care we received for love, when hooks posits care is only a single element of love. In each chapter, she walks us through a different component of love and our potential experiences in relation to that component; she shatters mistruths, challenges traditional historical concepts, and presents us with a new, working definition. Finally, hooks calls us to action: to deeply shift our perspective about our supposedly loving ways.
Her words began to clearly highlight, for me, what our role is as poets, truth-tellers, spell casters, and change makers.
Why is this important? Well, having a clear, working framework of what it means to be a poet and do the work of a poet, gives us permission to welcome clarity, ease, and inspiration throughout our personal creative processes. I think all poets can benefit from hooks’s ideas.
So let’s get into it: what is the role of the expressor (poet) and the ways we engage with our expression (poetry)? Let’s explore.
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Before I get into sharing about our roles, it is important to provide hooks’s definition of love, because her opening chapter, “Clarity: Give Love Words,” is all about establishing a collective understanding of love, eradicating any confusions and misperceptions. Because, according to hooks, it is our confusion which prompts our struggles and bewilderment regarding our love (and creative) practices.
hooks’s definition of love: “Love is a mix of various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication… Love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care,” with knowledge being a necessary component.
3 Primary Functions of The Poet
Based on this working definition and hooks’s guiding essays, I offer three functions of the role of the poet.
1 Confronters
“The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want it to be.”
In chapter 3, “Honesty: Be True to Love,” hooks calls out our culture's praise of dishonesty as a means of cultivating success and getting what we desire from others. As an example, as children many of us experienced a pivotal moment of courageously practicing truth—a virtue, we were told—but were met with punishment instead of praise. We learned quickly that telling white-lies and saying what elders wanted to hear would more often be rewarded. Ultimately, truth-telling was devalued and unpracticed by many of our adult authority figures as well as our peers.
As practitioners of love, we must learn to willingly hear and share truth, to affirm truth’s value. As poets, I believe we are confronters of truth and reality. Through our writing processes and practices, we wrestle with reality, providing clarity for ourselves and our larger contextual experiences, through naming and defining our experiences. Be they ugly, beautiful, unutterable or easily named.
We do the gritty work of honesty.
2 Guideposts
“Those of us who have already chosen to embrace a love ethic, allowing it to govern and inform how we think and act, know that when we let our light shine, we draw to us and are drawn to other bearers of light. We are not alone.”
Chapter 6, “Values: Living by a Love Ethic,” is where hooks calls out our societal disorder, our obsession with power and domination. Perhaps, if our foundation is love, which is liberatory and presupposes freedom and wholeness in every dimension of our being, our experiences—how we speak, act, interact—will be more aligned.
The work of a poet is not to present ourselves or our creations as perfect, nor, if we are holding true to our calling, is it to hold power or dominion over another. Our focus is on releasing, acknowledging, and sorting our way through this life thing.
Whether consciously known or not, this is the work we engage in.
Now, hear me: I am aware poets by no means have all the answers to our societal problems. Yet and still, through our internal and external confrontation practices, writing onto paper our raw grapplings, we serve as guideposts for humans on our similar frequency, modeling a potential avenue towards self-acceptance and authenticity via honesty.
We light the way.
3 Cultivators
“We must move beyond the realm of feeling to actualize love. This is why it is useful to see love as a practice. When we act, we need not feel inadequate or powerless; we can trust that there are concrete steps to take on love’s path.”
hooks’s chapters on spirituality, community, and mutuality (5, 8 and 9, respectively) speak to the very real fact that love is best known, learned, and understood in community. Love is a spiritual practice where we alchemize our internal world by receiving what is outside us and transforming it, reshaping our world.
When we engage in love, we engage with life, forming deeply satisfying connections, knowing fulfillment and purpose.
This is how I see poetry. It is both a feeling and an action. A practice of solitude and connection.
How many times have you read a poem that perfectly expressed an experience or emotion, you had in ways you couldn’t quite say on your own? How many times have you seen yourself in the words of a poem? Or walked away from a writing session in astonishment at the depth of your poured out story and emotions?
Two poems that cut me open, pushing me to go deeper into introspection, at a time that I was already raw and spiraling with emotion (as the pandemic was a new thing), are “Territory” and “Too Much” by Lang Leav in her book, The Universe of Us.
As poets, we cultivate environments in which love can exist and expand, within us and without. We leave parts of ourselves on pages, in books. Our poems often serve as mirrors held up for us to see our own reflection and recognize ourselves.
We show that poetry can be much like gardening. We do our best to foster positive conditions, allowing for fertile growth. Ultimately, nature will do its thing. Bad crops, storms, and droughts will happen. The question is: what do we do with our experience afterwards?
Do we replant? Rewrite? Reshare? We must. Vulnerability is our way through.
We make room for growth, and provide a similar space for others.
So you see, as poets, we often shift worlds and shape change. With every written line we plainly communicate what it means to be a human being moving closer towards a love ethic.
Further Reading
Because it is important to concretely ground our conversation beyond mere conceptualization, I’ve put together a list of works that exemplify, for me, these three qualities. Some are recommendations from fellow poets, many are works I have on my shelf, all are from authors actively writing vulnerably, sharing their stories, impacting others in the process, and establishing spaces for continued connection, alchemization, and authenticity.
All Along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living by Morgan Harper Nichols
[This book] is a combination of validations, reminders, and reassurances. Similar to “You Deserve Flowers,” except expanded. (Cultivator + Guidepost + Confronter)
Every Word You Cannot Say by Iain S. Thomas
This book was like a hug; both a firm and gentle parent. The pages that stuck out to me provided good reminders and validations, painting pages with words I couldn't, exactly the title of the book. (Guidepost + Confronter)
HER vol 1 2 & 3 and HIM by Pierre Alex Jeanty
Jeanty pushes us to evaluate our conditionings, beliefs, and relational approaches as beings seeking love, romance, and wellbeing. (Confronter + Cultivator)
Listening Manifesto by Ernesto Pujol
This Manifesto serves as a foundational guide in active listening, providing useful tools for cultivating positive connections. (Guidepost + Cultivator)
Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni
This collection of poems touches on the span of forms love can take: motherhood, romance, patriotism, and our felt positive and negative encounters with these forms. (Confronter)
Maps for the Modern World by Valerie June Hockett
Hockett, in a lighthearted way, taps into our common human experiences and provides ways for our navigating through. (Guidepost + Cultivator)
Soft Magic, A Fire Like You by Upile Chisale
These books provided me space and permission to connect with myself, and others, from a place of grace, understanding, and compassion. (Confronter + Guidepost + Cultivator)
Water For My Seeds by Thierra Walker
Walker touched on feelings and experiences that were familiar and hard to address on my own, inviting me to let go of outdated, unserving narratives. (Confronter + Guidepost + Cultivator)
You Deserve Flowers by Danny Francis
A gentle hand, mostly keeping you company and leading you just enough when you need to keep going; a reassurance. (Guidepost)
This article was published on May 23, 2024. Written by:
