Notes on Poetry

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~Plato, Ion

Poetry is to philosophy what the Sabbath is to the rest of the week. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, “Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers“

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. ~W.B. Yeats

 

 

Notes on Poetry

 

 I started writing poetry in the sixth grade. I wrote an acrostic poem to my grandmother after my uncle had be shot 5 times, and though the poem did not change the fact this woman had a son that may be ripped from this world, it did put a momentary smile on her face. I would later, as a freshman in high school, discover my sister’s poetry journals and find that what I was writing was but a far cry from what she had labeled poetry. It was like opening a door to a room you thought was just a closet, and finding paradise on the other side.  Her poems were more heartache than love, yet more praise than persecution and overall beautifully thought provoking. She was and still is among some of the greatest poets I will ever have the honor and pleasure of reading.

During my senior year in high school, I was given a library pass every day by an English teacher, named Mr. Giovanni, who explained to me- after reading a descriptive essay I had written- that he could not teach me anything. I took this to mean he could not teach me what I needed to know, and still maintain his mandatory curriculum.  It was in that library that I stumbled upon Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and found out that Steven King was a great writer even when he wasn’t writing horror stories. I fell in love with words and the art of story telling during this time period, and it was then that I started writing short stories. I felt like poetry at this point was a vehicle primarily for humor and short burst of emotions. I wrote poems to girls, poems about smoking marijuana, getting drunk, and poems for other guys to give to their girlfriends. I didn’t notice the value in what I was creating and therefore took it for granted, because the man that does not understand the purpose of a thing will by default abuse it.

After high school I joined the military and left poetry at the backdoor of my adolescence. Though the traveling, stress, and strain of military life offered plenty of inspiration, it provided little to no motivation. For what soldier finds beauty in another man’s thoughts and emotions? We are trained to take and follow orders without question. The very make up of a soldier’s mindset is to not think only act or react and only when told. Needless to say I had a very hard time adhering to such disciplines, and thus ended up deserting in transition to an overseas post in Germany. Not that I was not capable of being a good solider! I graduated basic training an honor graduate and was awarded airborne training as a prize for my diligence and leadership abilities. However, it was this very reward that would spark the embers of disapproval and lack of respect for the type of men given authority in the U.S. military. In an attempt to not bash or dissuade anyone from joining our nations armed forces I will simply say that most of my disapproval had to do with my ability to think for myself, and an inability to not look for reason in much of what I was commanded to do. I am not one (as most any human being) to humbly sit under the direction of those that abuse their authority, nor am I willing or able to support those same parties. Call it an allergy or a defective quality in my DNA, but something about it just makes me break out in hives! I get sick, angry, repulsed by it, and lash out! However it was this distaste for abused power that pushed me not only away from the military, but back into writing.

I began writing poems that were very Langston-esk in that they were about the places I had been, mostly short, simple, yet esthetically profound. Poems like:

Winter In Germany

Jack Frost is a ten foot tall

Nine hundred ninety-nine pound,

Big black, body builder

With a size sixty-two shoe,

That he keeps planted in my ass.

And some not so crude like:

Macedonian Mountains

It’s as if God

Plunged His fingers into the earth

And yanked on the dirt

Creating a mountain with one hand

Just to let me know

How small I really am.

Looking back I find a boy that was writing from a place of wonder, of hurt, a place devoid of purpose, and he was hoping the poems would somehow explain life to him; that they would offer an explanation for the pain of his trials. I had landed myself in prison on an attempted murder charge and found myself to be a very troubled and angry young man that wanted nothing more than to be loved and accepted despite my inability to allow myself to loved and accepted. I was a terrible individual that found the faults in society to be an excuse to not take responsibility for my own faults, and I ask myself now, is this not the nature and disposition of most youth today struggling to find their place and purpose in this chaos we call society? I can tell you the poems didn’t explain life, but they did serve as great warning markers over potholes for others that would travel similar roads. And it is for this reason that I continue to write and perform and share my experiences, both dark and promising.

I believe poetry is among the greatest gifts a man can offer a society, but the gift of being a poet is among the worst God can give to a man. For poets live with the horror of having to tell their story while at the same time having the honor of telling yours. As a serious poet one begins to understand that it is very difficult to be the mirror that shows more blemish than beauty, and it is for this reason I will go to my grave believing most people don’t want the truth! I think most people prefer to simply cover up the bruises and scars instead of trying to prevent them, maybe the pain makes them feel more human. Perhaps the truth is a double-edged sword that leaves us informed while at the same time holds us accountable, and though one likes to be informed one does not like to be held accountable, so to avoid the responsibility one will defer the privilege. Baldwin wrote, “Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.” Perhaps this is the case with me! All the things I’ve had the misfortune, and pleasure of witnessing or experiencing have made me the poet and writer I am today. Whether it be the act of falling in love, the misfortune of being abandoned by my mother months after birth, discovering the joy of family, or the depression of a broken heart, it all has made me into this instrument that God uses to speak to others, so they can understand their struggles are just as common as the next man’s, and in the end it all works out for our good! Which is why I like to say, “ I might be telling my story, but I’m talking about you!”