Poetry Friday: Poetry and Anxiety

Today is Poetry Friday. The host this week is Margaret Simon at her blog Reflections on the Tech. Margaret is heavily involved in poetry and posts interesting work – her own creations as well as sometimes those of her students. Check it out. Thank you for hosting, Margaret!

A Small Poem

If you are looking for a poem. I have just a small one to share from my playing along with Laura Purdie Salas’s poetry project for April. I finally went to her blog for a thorough explanation of what she was doing with “digging for poems” by using magnetic words.

I’m still unsure as to whether I did it correctly but I dug for five words:

storm(s), million(s), rainbow, lift, gurgle.

Here is the poem:

Search for Rainbows
For They Lift You
Over Millions of Storms…Gurgle!

© Draft, Carol Labuzzetta, 2023

All the words were from her word bank of magnetic poems. It was challenging and I was intrigued enough to look for a box of magnetic words when I was at Barnes and Noble on Wednesday.

So far this month, National Poetry Month, I haven’t had a lot of time to write poetry. The first few days of April were spent getting ready for my second public poetry reading; this time at a public library in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I read from my chapbook of poems last year at a poetry event at an art gallery in Iowa.

Despite some anxiety about doing it, the reading went well. I wrote about it in my Medium.com blog yesterday. You can read about it by clicking this Medium.com link.

Growth As a Poet and As a Person

Some degree of anxiety is good for me. I know that it helps me to prepare and try to do my best. Too much anxiety can prevent anything from happening. It can be paralyzing. Fortunately, I’ve never had it to that degree.

By reading my poetry, I grew both as a person and as a poet. I shared a craft or even talent (some might say) that I created. I shared it more eloquently than I did last year at the art gallery. I was more confident in my reading. I owned my work and made no apologies for it. Although I dreaded going to the reading, I ended up being glad I went and participated.

I appreciated what others contributed to the evening, even if I did not understand their work. I was especially grateful for the librarian who organized the event made flyers and publicized it. I was honored to have both my son and a great friend attend.

I know I’ll continue to try and write poetry, publish, and share poetry. It has become part of who I am. Writing can be cathartic, therapeutic, and fulfilling all at the same time. I write because I need to write.

Poetry Month

Although I have not written a poem each day this month, I’ve written a few, edited a few more, had a public reading, and bought a poetry book of a peer who read at the Iowa event last May.

I’ve come to several conclusions this first week of National Poetry Month. They are:

Writing poetry is hard. Sharing poetry is harder.

Poetry is personal and highly subjective.

Poetry should be shared.

It takes practice to read a poem well (one of the differences between my reading last year and this year was that I practiced my poems).

Poetry should be accessible to those reading it. By this I mean there should be at least some understanding of what the poet is trying to convey.

I want to try my hand at writing some poetry about more difficult subjects that have touched my life such as miscarriage, giftedness, a feeling of being on the fringe, being an introvert, and more. These might be too personal to share. I usually write about things that bring joy, or awareness, or make me happy – the other subjects are a departure from that so I don’t know how I’ll do. The only way to know is to try.

Thank you for reading! I post daily at https://carollabuzzetta.medium.com/ and at least twice a week on WordPress where I am soon to have 1900 posts! I’d be pleased to have you follow me on either platform.

My chapbook, Life’s Inspiration and Reflection in a Few Words, is available on Amazon.