I like to surround myself with creative people.
In the past, I would have said that I like to surround myself with creative people because I don’t have a creative bone in my body.
I now know that this is not true. I do stuff.
However, while I accept my creativity, I have to keep it real. My creativity manifests mostly in my thought process, rather than in a physical form. I still can’t draw worth a damn. My paintings are all rather abstract (even when I don’t want them to be). My short stories have minimal plot (they are more like scenes than stories). And while my poems are the bomb (if I do say so myself), they are few and far between. And it has been far, far too long since I wrote anythng worth showing folks.
And that is why I’m hating on poets.
On Monday, I went to a spoken word thing. I call it a “thing” because it wasn’t a slam or a competition, so I don’t know how to catergorize it. And for you local Triangle peeps, come bless the mic and tell me when so I can come clap for you. (Its every Monday night)
So.
This poetry thing was in Chapel Hill and was a very different experience from the Atlanta and Durham poetry things that I have gone to in the past.
Let me explain.
My Atlanta experience with poetry things has been really gay. Mostly women speaking on how much they love women and all the reasons why they love women and all the ways they love women.
And in Durham, the poetry things are rather militant and political. They talk about revolutions, and overthrowing the government, and smoking weed and embracing diversity.
Monday, the poets were mostly college kids, idealistic, sugary. They lacked the life experience to really talk about anything that makes you wanna holla. Some of the “deepness” seemed forced or contrived. Their pieces didn’t evoke any lasting emotion. There were a couple of times that I may have even snickered and thought, What the hell are they talking about?
But even in the midst of that, there were flashes of brilliance. Some of those kids had skills. They had word play, they had depth, they made me think, they made me listen. They made me jealous.
They had the gift. They were real poets, speaking of experience beyond their time, making me feel some kinda way.
That’s why I hate on poets.
I’m jealous of the way poets see and are in tune with people, situations, circumstances, emotions. Poets tell us how we feel. They tell our stories. Its like they know us (all of us) And then they have the nerve to add rhyme? Yep, I’m hating. ‘Cause I’m jealous.
I remember (in my younger years) when I could sit down with a pen and a notepad and the words would just…flow. And I would surprise myself.
And Monday, as I listened to these kids, I was reminded of my younger self, with my half-boiled, just below the surface emotions that I carried on my sleeve, and I was sad for me.
Young Monica was a poet. She could take a situation, (even an ugly one) flip that ish and make her momma say, where you copy that from? (True story)
Now, I don’t even know what I do. I’m hard. Cynical. Blah. Sometimes I think I’m sleepwalking. And I’m definitely not writing any poetry.
I’ve lost something. I’v ignored my sensitivity. I’ve ignored my humanity. Not is the sense that I don’t care about the world, ’cause I do care. But I look at life at an arm’s length. I don’t let anything get too close.
And its hard to write about emotional sh!t when you keep your emotions all locked up.
Monday, I took notes at the poetry thing. When someone said something that spoke to me, I wrote it down. Don’t know what I’m going to do yet. But I’m going to do something. Dammit.
I couldn’t sleep Monday night. I tossed and turned and wrote poetry in my dreams. Then I got up Tuesday and I couldn’t remember any of it. I would have felt better had I just sat up and let my pen work. *sigh
I gotta strengthen my flabby poetic muscles.
I’m going to keep going to poetry things. I’m going to let the gf give me painting lessons (and writing exercises) and I’m going to shake the dust off my raw emotion and let it out. I’m going to take more opportunities to think poetically.
Because I’m sick of hating on the poets and their ability to twist vocabulary in a way that makes my soul ache.
Sh!t, I used to be able to do the same thing.
