How Poetry Helped Me Find My Voice (And Could Help You Find Yours) 📖✨
my thoughts on writing, wisdom, & words - welcome back to The Slush Pile!
I knew that Issue 17 of the Slush Pile would be a special edition of my newsletter because as I’m writing this, we’re already halfway through National Poetry Month! I love reading and writing poetry all year round but this time of year is always, in my view, a special chance to center this millennia-old tradition and art form in a way that encourages others to do the same, even—or especially—if they don’t consider themselves writers or readers of poetry. Like Robin Williams’s character in Dead Poets Society, I want us all to envision a world moved by intentional words and language, to drop our fear of poetry, let go of our assumptions about its presumptions and snobbery, and reinvent what it could mean in each of our lives.
This month-long celebration has brought out a lot of beauty in the writers I follow, as many have been writing and posting poems every single day, but unsurprisingly, it’s also led to controversy. Perhaps because of the time of year or because there’s always something to say about her, Rupi Kaur and Instapoets like her have again popped up in national and online discourse about poetry, straddling the line between malice and obsession in the same vein as Colleen Hoover love stories. I’m not personally invested or interested in any of it but it has led me to wonder more broadly about the mass’s perception of what poetry is, what it means, what it looks like, what shapes it can take, and why any of it matters in the first place. But to do so, I first want to talk about the role poetry has played in my own life, how it’s become a source of my power and voice, and why, even if you’re the kind of person who thinks you could never write a single poem, the potential to harness it is also well within your grasp.
I first started writing poetry when I was fourteen years old and a freshman in high school. I actually grew up in the tradition of early Instapoetry and slam poetry with writers like Janel Pineda, Yesika Salgado, Lang Leav, and Orion Carloto. With these two distinct forms, I was taught to channel my adolescent fantasies, whims, longings, nostalgia, and desires into poetry. I wrote about crushes I was having, conflicts I was experiencing, fantasies and daydreams that I made feel real and present rather than imaginary. As someone who was in one-sided or unrequited friendships and relationships, having poetry as an outlet was life-saving. I don’t remember the first poem I ever wrote, likely tucked away in a notebook or old computer file somewhere. But from that moment on, poetry, combined with short fiction scenes that served a lot of the same purpose, became an outlet of creative expression that helped me better understand myself as a young person trying to find their way, identity, and purpose in the world.
Thankfully, none of the pieces ever did or will see the light of day, mostly for their grand and sweeping statements, exaggerated and dramatic nature, tacky language, and clichés. What can I say? I was clearly feeling a lot. But when I look back on this period of my life, even reading my old manuscripts, yes, I cringe, but I’m also jealous of my younger self. How free and uninhibited I was by my own inner critic, how in touch I was with my emotions, how I experimented with language, how I took inspiration from what I was reading, adapted it to what I was going through, and transformed it into something new. I think we’d all be better off, better poets and better people, if we sat with our feelings for longer.
As I grew older, I got hooked on the work of classic poets like Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Walt Whitman, who, despite their whiteness, were, at least in the case of the women, writing and reading at a time when it was looked down upon for them to do either. In doing so, they helped me rethink my poetic purpose as a person in a contemporary world, how I could learn from the issues of their time as they wrote (gender equality, class, mental health, marriage, love), and push them even further in mine.
But it wasn’t until I read established poets of color in college like Sandra Cisneros, Maya Angelou, and Audre Lorde, as well as writers from the new generation like Ariana Brown, Camoghne Felix, Ocean Vuong, and Chen Chen, that I found myself looking at my life and craft in an entirely new way. I found strength in my differences rather than insecurity as my younger self might’ve done. I finally felt like I’d been given permission to center my poetry in something more concrete, moving beyond the themes of romantic love or unrequited relationships from my adolescence, to focus on social justice issues, home, family, womanhood, gender, sexuality, different forms of love, and coming-of-age, all grounded in the intersections of my identity. As someone who is almost a decade older than the person I was when I started writing poetry, I’m more certain of who I am and what I want out of life (though of course, it will change with time) and am less prone to asking that of my poetry. Instead, I am more interested in incorporating my community, family, experiences, and heritage into my poetry at the same time that I’m interrogating and questioning it. I’m interested in complexity, in layers, in conversing with poets of the past and present in our journeys to uncover who we are, pull back the layers of ourselves, and showcase that to the world.
In reading and writing poetry, I have become a more empathetic person. Especially when I read the work of someone who does not share many of my identities, I find myself widening the scope of my global perspective, shifting my ideas about certain issues and conceptions, reconsidering my work, and, on a micro-level, rethinking my place in my own diaspora. The same is true no matter what genre I read but there’s something undeniably tender, intimate, and vulnerable that poetry that helps me rethink everything I ever thought I knew. I recently read Sana by Maria Bolaños as part of my poetry collection binge this month, and it surprised me not only what little I really knew about the Filipinx diaspora, but also how many similarities I found between her culture and mine linguistically and historically. It ignited in me some much-needed meditation and inner work, and fueled my inspiration and inclination to write with a perspective that had grown and changed.
Of course, I know that not everyone views poetry this way. I can’t tell you just how many times I’ve told people that I write poetry and their first response is to praise me while simultaneously putting themselves down and the genre as a whole, saying they “could never do that.” I’m often tempted to ask what they mean by “that”, how much weight it gives to a single word that might not in fact be necessary or true. The other day I even had a conversation with a writer I admire very much who’s an avid poetry reader but said they could never write it and when I asked if they’d ever tried, they admitted that they hadn’t. I couldn’t help but wonder (yes, pulling out my inner Carrie Bradshaw here): where do we get this idea that poetry is this out-of-reach, unattainable thing? Is it fear or cringe or misconceptions from a certain sector of the landscape? Is it too vulnerable and personal for people to handle? Why is poetry so intimidating?
In my experience, I generally find that people who don’t like poetry or claim they can’t write it haven’t read much of it to begin with. Because if they had, they would know that poetry can come in many different forms and shapes and styles. I feel like most people only know poetry at its most vague and abstract when there are plenty of poets with a more straightforward style, or the difficult stuff we read in school, or in hard-to-watch open mics and viral TikToks, or cringey, over-the-top scenes in movies and TV that paint poetry as something easy to mock. With a few exceptions, the media has made the idea of the poet into someone with too many turtlenecks and presumptions, when in reality, the poets I know are some of the kindest and most generous, empathetic, and observant people I know. We also tend to be the hardest on and most critical of ourselves when it comes to our craft.
The truth is, all poetry (yes, even Instapoetry), has a place in this landscape we call writing. And really, there is no one stopping us from writing poetry other than ourselves. Even if it’s “bad,” even if it’s “not worthy” of being published, even if you think you have nothing beautiful or interesting to say, the poetry we write has the potential to unlock something inside of us worth saving. It’s the way your mother braids your hair and how your lover splits open a clementine with their finger. It’s the thing you perform in front of your school campus or the steps of the White House to turn the audience’s attention to an issue or problem. It’s the small, private moments in life AND an anthem for justice AND a call to unity. It can be and do anything and there’s no limit to what we can accomplish with our words if we set aside those self-made boundaries.
All that said, if you’re still looking for a starting point, I found my way to poetry simply by reading it, and in the ten years since I’ve started, much has been said and done and published in this sphere. Just like any other genre, if there’s something you start that you don’t like, put it down and try another one. I guarantee there’s at least one poem for everyone. So read what you can, learn what you want, and the next time you find yourself with a pen and an empty page, set aside your doubt and answer the call.
notes from the writer’s desk ✍️
my favorite recently pub’d pieces:
updates:
Submissions for my magazine Mag 20/20 are now OPEN for Issue 06! We are looking for writing (all forms), art, music, photography, and hybrid work from creatives 20-29. Until the deadline on July 15th, your work will be considered by an incredible masthead of readers and editors, so be sure to get your submissions in soon. Submit here!
Since January, I’ve been hosting creativity café, an ig live series where i feature, create space, and hold conversation with writers I love and that you should too! The eighth episode will premiere next Monday at 2pm PST and feature special guest writer Ellie Lopez, so head to my Instagram to watch it then. See you there!
STREAMING SERVICE: season two, the sequel to my self-published debut poetry chapbook STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv, IS NOW OUT! Digital and signed physical copies are available, as well as the option to bundle both chapbooks and receive a bookmark and sticker with every physical order! Order your copy today! Thank you as always for your support :’)
I am now a media mentor for Tectonic Media! If you are a young/aspiring journalist, I am available for consultation and mentorship on a variety of topics. Learn more about my areas of specialty and how we can connect here.
resources:
Looking for book recommendations? Check out my Bookstagram and TikTok to keep up with what I’m reading and loving right now! On TikTok, you’ll also get more snippets of my everyday writing life and lifestyle/fashion content. See you there!
other stories i’m loving 📖
currently reading:
The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón
currently watching:
Abbott Elementary, S2
currently listening to:
“This City” by Snoop Dogg
all my love,
sofía xx
I absolutely adored reading your thoughts on poetry and how it brought you closer to yourself. It was a privilege to read this today. Thank you for sharing!