One of the poems I wrote when I was 21. My then-boyfriend—a kind, gentle soul—had come to an impasse with me about something, and I wrote the poem about the distance it created between us, how I wanted to close the space. It was one in a group of poems I submitted for my college’s poetry contest, and I remember that my father had a work conflict with the ceremony where the contest winner would be announced, and I wanted him there so very badly since I became a writer and poet largely because of him, and he surprised me by showing up, and I won the contest. I have a picture of us from that day. It’s one of my favorites—me next to my father, a man I loved then and love now. I broke up with the boyfriend a year and a half later—not because there was anything wrong with him, but because I was too young to pick one person for the rest of my life—and years later, after my first marriage and divorce, I regretted that decision, I wanted to take it back like so many other things, but of course I could not.
I wrote one of the poems after I heard about the terrible death of a young actor.
I wrote another after I returned from teaching in Mexico and I could not stop thinking about a student’s unwillingness to step out from the shadow of her boyfriend. My time in Mexico had taught me about stepping out of shadows, about figuring out what I wanted, and I can see now the poem is about my recognition of myself in her.
I wrote one about gardening, but it’s really about marriage.
I wrote another about gardening, but it’s really about surviving illness.
I wrote imagined poems—poems not based on truth—and I wrote poems that have a little bit of truth mixed with a lot of fiction. Poems don’t have to be true, after all.
I wrote one while sitting in the Underdog Cafe, a coffee shop in my hometown (and my favorite in the world), after I had walked by a high school acquaintance whose brother had just died. That poem is about him, his brother, but it’s also about small towns, about our connections.
I wrote one about my great aunt who was a feminist but would have likely never called herself that. This poem started out as an essay that I revised a dozen times but could never get right. I eventually cut it down and it became a poem. This poem got published in one of my absolute favorite magazines, The Sun.
I wrote one when I was in love. That poem won a contest. The relationship did not.
I wrote one about tornadoes—I grew up in Ohio, after all—but it’s really about a relationship’s implosion.
I wrote a few about cooking—I must have been hungry a lot—and about what cooking has taught me, why I do it. I wrote about someone cooking for me. That person taught me how to care for an iron skillet. He also taught me about what it means to want two things at once that are impossible to have simultaneously, and the consequences of this yearning.
I wrote some when I was young, and some when I was not so young, and I wrote some about being young.
I wrote one about eating falafel sandwiches on Paris streets with someone I used to love. That trip was the only time I have ever been to Paris, or France for that matter. We walked around so much our feet swelled, but we loved exploring the neighborhoods and we loved Mediterranean food and falafel sandwiches that were so stuffed they fell apart in our hands. Months later, we fell apart. The poem is a little about that, too.
I wrote some poems when I lived in Ohio, some when I lived in North Carolina, and some when I lived in Tennessee, which I still do. I wrote one about Tennessee.
I wrote one about the last time my mother saw her mother. This poem is also about my grandmother’s death, which happened the summer I was about to leave for college, and it was the only time in my life my mother and I argued and argued for weeks. I understand now we were trying to hold on and let each other go as I transitioned to a new chapter, and we didn’t have words to express our sadness at having to do this.
I wrote one about the things someone took from me, but the poem is ultimately about how I willingly gave up those things.
I wrote one on a morning when I was grappling with medical issues and trying to focus on all the things I was grateful for in the face of my fear.
I wrote another, years later, about wanting to protect the people I loved from something terrible befalling them.
I wrote one for a former love’s birthday, about how we had managed to put aside our baggage to come together. Except a week later, we were broken up. I thought I broke up with him. He thought he broke up with me. I told him if he wanted to be the one who broke up, that was fine since I would have preferred we work things out. I cried for weeks and then months afterward. I understand now I was grieving not just our relationship but trust in myself. Six months later, when he said he wanted to get back together but with certain “conditions,” I built trust in myself by realizing he didn’t love me just as I was, and that I would accept nothing less.
I wrote about a time when I was 21 and in college, but it’s not about the boyfriend, that kind, gentle soul. It’s about a life lesson I learned.
So many poems are about life lessons. And I’m still learning, and I’m still writing, and I’m already working on the next collection.
Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning won the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. The collection will be published by Mercer University Press on February 1, 2021. (Cover photo by August Michael Knemeyer). Learn more about the book here.
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
The Art of Memoir & Personal Essay: A Generative Writing Workshop
March 10-April 7, 2021, 2:30-5 p.m.
Join me in this five-week, online (Zoom) workshop during which you will generate new writing, read writing that inspires, and learn some tools and techniques on the craft of personal essay/memoir writing. The goal is for you to leave with first drafts and a writer’s toolbox ready to help you finish and write the rest of your own life stories. Learn more here. Cost: $329. REGISTER HERE.
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Online Poetry Workshop
February 11, 2021: 7-8 p.m.
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Moments that Matter: an Introduction to Flash Nonfiction
February 20, 2021, 2:00 p.m. EST
In this workshop, we’ll talk about what flash nonfiction is, how it works, and why it works. Together we’ll mine some powerful flash pieces for effective techniques you can use in your own writing. This program is part of Press 53’s High Road Festival of Poetry and Short Fiction. Cost: $30. Register here.
