Where a Poem Begins

All of my poetry stems from my own life experiences, but some of the experiences are more intensely personal than others. What I mean is that some of my poetry is inspired by something I observe: a mellow fall day, a boy playing with chalk on the sidewalk, the shapes that have grown into the bark of a tree, the way the sun reflects off the water, those sorts of things. Almost always, I'll end up connecting those observations to something in my life, but they don't originate with my own lived experiences.

Most of my poetry is the direct result of the who, what, where, why, and how I am living or have lived. They're experiential in that they reflect pieces of myself. I often write poetry to help me deal with and process the things I'm experiencing. Poems help me express the emotions I have a hard time naming and often owning. Writing about my life allows me to live it better. For that reason alone, I wish I wrote poetry more often. Having said this, often my muses are dark emotions that stem from painful things I have or am experiencing and I certainly don't wish my life had more darkness in it.

So when things in my life are going well - as they are right now - I am less inspired to write. I want to write but I rarely feel that surge of emotion and inspiration that I need to feel in order to have the courage to put pen to paper. (Since writing poetry is so intensely personal for me, and I am an admitted perfectionist who is way too hard on herself, it requires a fair amount of courage for me to even begin a poem.) My seeming inability to write when much is right in my world is somewhat ironic as I don't often feel that I process my positive emotions as well as I should. What I mean is, I find that I often have trouble attaching joy or happiness or contentment to the good things in my life. It's something I struggle with because I don't just want to know that my life is going well; I want to feel it too.