Poetry Loves Me Back: How Trust Helps Me Keep Writing
My Journey Into a Poet’s Life
I am what many refer to as an “emerging” poet. I like to think of myself as newly committed to the practice of poetry. Though I have been reading and writing poetry since I was a teenager, I pushed poetry into the background of my life while academic degrees and teaching took priority.
After leaving the world of teaching to care for my two children, I met an openness I thought I would never experience as an adult. Without the pressure of a job, I started my tarot practice, completed a death doula training, and, of course, signed up for virtual poetry workshops.
In fact, it had only been a week since my first surgical birth when I sat down with my laptop for my first round of a 6-week generative poetry workshop that I would return to again and again. As soon as my life opened up, I turned to poetry.
In these workshops, I found community and support. In the summer of 2022, the poet Jon Sands invited me and a few of my peers to feature at a poetry reading. There, I met my classmate Karl Michael Iglesias who gave me a free copy of his chapbook CATCH A GLOW under the condition that I give him a copy of mine.
My chapbook? I did not have plans for a chapbook yet, but at that moment—Yes, my chapbook.
Pregnant and sleep-deprived with my savings depleted, I kept writing. I also committed to affirming and supporting the poets in my circle with more intention, just as Karl Michael Iglesias had modeled for me.
By the next summer, I had more than enough poems for a 10-minute feature at an open mic. I started a free, weekly Creativity Circle and connected with more writers who were interested in writing together and giving each other feedback.
I started paying attention to my very ordinary life and acting on inspiration based on the tiniest moments, like the way someone used the word “middle” in a podcast or something my toddler did.
I also created a timeline for completing my chapbook (by the end of 2024!) and shifted into a “sustained attention that distinguishes poets from those who occasionally write poems” (Joy Priest).
Publishing Plot Twists
With this shift, I also started submitting poems for contests, fellowships, and publication. After a few rejections, I received an email that told me that I had been awarded a fellowship that was judged by one of my favorite poets. Through this fellowship, my poems would be published for the very first time. I had been bracing for another rejection and truly could not believe it.
Three days later, the worst feeling: my disbelief was true. I received an email telling me that the previous email had been a mistake. I updated the few friends I had celebrated with, called my husband, and cried for hours while changing diapers and preparing snacks.
The magazine that was going to publish my poems offered to publish them that summer anyway. I accepted that offer and signed a contract. A couple of weeks later, I came across the news that the Editor-in-Chief was no longer at the magazine. With no follow-up regarding publication and with summer days away, I made it a habit to check the magazine’s website. This is how I learned that the magazine would be taking a pause to recover from horrible news. I immediately knew that I would have to withdraw my poems.
I reached out and received a gracious response. I took a couple of deep breaths—a fleeting kind of grief. I realized I had been anticipating this particular disappointment.
I had to start over.
What I Mean When I Say Poetry Loves Me Back
The day I was un-awarded the fellowship, I remember noticing that by the time my husband and I put our babies to sleep, I was okay. This prompted me to ask myself: why did I fall apart over a fellowship, even for just a couple of hours?
I nudged myself away from shame and toward curiosity. I work hard to stay in my body and hold onto my wellness as a new parent who is actively witnessing and working (and writing) against oppression and multiple genocides. Do I want an award or rejection to knock me off my center?
I decided that when it comes to my poems, I did not want to take someone else’s decision, preference, or mistake into my body with such intensity again.
I found myself grateful to experience this heartbreaking turn of events so early in my life as a poet because it demanded that I reflect on my relationship to poetry—not publication or literary journals or contests or money—just poetry.
At the time, I was working one-on-one with the poet Shira Erlichman who prompted me to think about what it would mean to have a secure attachment with poetry. According to the development psychologist Alan Sroufe, “attachment is a relationship in service of a baby’s emotion regulation and exploration.” A secure attachment is one in which a child trusts in their caregiver’s responsiveness.
Do I trust my own commitment to poetry? Why do I write? Am I open to receiving everything poetry (my writing practice, poems, community of poets) has to offer me?
Here are some excerpts from my free-write in response to Shira’s prompt:
to be securely attached to my poetry… is to commit to a long-lasting relationship with poetry. it means that i am willing to get to know myself through my relationship to poetry—notice myself, be with myself through difficulty, grow into myself, and so, continue to relate to poetry. it means i commit to living in the world with all of my senses as a poet.
does poetry love me back? yes.
how do i know? because there is always something for me to gain when i meet myself with a pencil in my hand.
…
yes, poetry loves me back, even when it doesn’t pay me money or give me prizes, even if it doesn’t put my name on a book published everywhere.
…
i walk across everything hard about life…
i look back
and there poetry is.
During our conversation and upon further reflection, a couple of things became clear:
My poems not being selected can never take away my motivation and ability to keep writing and keep growing as a poet. In fact, I celebrate that no matter how disappointed I feel, I will inevitably return to poetry.
In addition to skill, luck, timing, and human error are factors in the world of publishing and literary competition.
In many cases, the submission process is very impersonal. It contrasts the care and warmth that goes into a poem. Ultimately, the world of publishing should never be equated with poetry itself.
There are editors and magazines whose work align more with the spirit of poetry, and I am determined to find them.
I am a poet because I study and write poetry; it is ingrained in my daily life. Publications and “winning” have no bearing on my commitment to poetry. I keep working so that I am ready for the day luck glimmers in my direction.
At the beginning of this article, I shared some of the transitions and moments that ushered me into my humble poet’s life because it reminds me (and I hope it reminds you, reader) that the world of poetry is all of it: the teachers we meet and return to, the people who celebrate us before published poems and prizes, the poet-friends who speak our own books into existence before we dare to, the readers and editors who will choose our poems one day, and the people who read our finally published poems and carefully write them by hand in their journals, declaring to their world, “This one moved something in me.”
This article was published on August 5, 2024. Written by:
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