When an intrusive thought bangs on cranial walls, we have a choice. We can let it keep spinning around, or we can say hello to it, honor it, and in my case, and maybe yours, morph it into a poem. No iambs, no pentameters, just plop the words on a page. This is poetry as medicine.
To be honest, I never set out to write poetry. Poems yanked at me randomly, not caring that I might be in the middle of something else. Once, when driving on a multi-lane highway, I needed to keep repeating the poem that was visiting me so I wouldn’t forget it. In that situation, there was no ‘shoulder of the road’ where I could pull over.
When my sister and I were young, we used to say, “I’m having a think.” I now understand that we were daydreaming, floating in that deep pool of creative juice that contains our swirl of random thoughts and emotions.
When poetry is ‘writing me’, I feel no obligation to follow rules of grammar, punctuation, capitalization, explanation. I am prompted, by who knows what, to let IT out. IT: creative juices, leaving me satisfied, flowing and knowing something that I needed to know, never mind why. Never mind how. Simple as that.
Writing poetry can have alchemical power turning confusion into clarity, sleep-walking into wake-walking. Knowing, even in hindsight, can highlight foresight. Writing poetry can prompt pleasing surprises.
Here’s the link to On the Shoulder of the Road on Amazon. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I hope it leaves you feeling inspired to veer onto the shoulder of your road.
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