the medicine of bad poetry & grief (but not grief about bad poetry)
I write a lot of bad poetry. That's my catchall term for meandering writing, without a purpose or cohesive narrative or even complete sentences.
Bad poetry is medicine, just like grief is medicine. But the grief medicine I'm referring to, in this love note, is the medicine of sharing and being validated, as I did on Come to the Brink with Zoë Flowers, a podcast about grief.
The conversation with Zoë starts with one of my favorite stories, that's also a metaphor I use frequently in my intuitive work. The episode is called "On the Brink of Grief's Portal," and the music includes Kind of Blue. Which, if you know the cover of my book, you'll know how much that made my heart glow.
Which brings me back to bad poetry, because bad poetry created some essential pieces of my book.
Sometimes my bad poetry is whimsy emerging from daydreams. Other times it's purging my rage at injustice in the world. Or just following a thread that doesn't have to make sense to anyone. Including me.
It's the stuff I never mean for anyone to read, and mostly remains unrefined and unread. Hence, bad poetry.
Anyway, I do keep these ramblings, because they often weave into other work, usually years later.
My book title is a perfect example. One day, in The Before Times, "still moving" was rattling in my mind. So I wrote about it. Just random thoughts, sort of on topic, but also not.
Years later, when I was deep in a jumbled draft that eventually became my book, the phrase returned. So I dug up that page, and my old ramblings got me thinking.
Nothing else on that page made it into the book. But if you've read my book, you know that "still moving" is the thematic thread of the whole narrative. The book has a few dozen metaphors about it, all inspired, initially, by my on topic/off topic thoughts.
The end of my book includes reflections on spring, regarding various definitions of the word. I pulled those ideas AND specific phrases from another page in that same folder of bad poetry.
I'm sharing this because I think it shows how writing can be a practice. Create because you make time for creating. You don't have to know the final use, the end destination, or the "real" purpose.
If you want to explore this with me, next Wednesday is Writing with Oracles at Heck.house.
Because you don't have to know where the words will go. Nor when. Just fucking write.
Pictured is my (blue) book, on that stack of folders of bad poetry.
Wildly poetical,
S.
she/they
Still Moving ~ memoir of my first 3 years of Long Covid
sync. fire. ~ concept album about synchronous fireflies
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Upcoming events:
~ Writing with Oracles on August 13th – workshop
~ Soundbath at StorieBrook on August 20th – soundbath
More details here.