30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Yourself
September 5, 2007 by John Hewitt
This is Day 2 of 30 Poems in 30 Days
Personal Therapy
Poetry can be excellent therapy. It allows you to process the events in your life, both good and bad. Some people shy away from writing personal poems because they either don’t think their life is important enough to write about or because they fear opening up those emotions and rehashing painful moments in their lives. Writing about yourself and the things that happen to you can be difficult.
Processing Events
Learn to process the events in your life with poetry. You don’t have to start with the most painful events in your life. The problem with writing about major traumas is that is so difficult to capture them in words. When something horrible happens to you, words often seem inadequate. You can save writing about those events for when you are feeling particularly brave and strong. Start small. Start with the little stresses and minor conflicts that make up most days. Many times, it is the smaller moments in our lives, not the larger ones, which are the most telling and interesting.
You are a Character
One of the keys to writing about the events in your life is to accept yourself as a character. When you are writing about yourself, you are essentially writing a persona poem, and the persona is you. A person reading your poem is going to be viewing you as a character in the poem. They may understand that you are writing about yourself, but they will still be viewing you as a character that they are trying to interpret and connect with.
First or Third
Some people find it helpful to write about themselves in the third person. Using this technique they move even further toward viewing themselves as a character. This technique allows them to step outside of themselves and view the events in a more detached way. Some people are comfortable with that process, while others prefer to stay in the first person. I, for one, like to stay in the first person.
Honesty as Policy
Some people wonder how honest you have to be when writing about yourself and your life. They fear that if they veer from the exact events, that they will be lying. This depends on your point of view. I try to be as truthful as possible in my poems, but the problem with being utterly truthful is that you may not be comfortable letting other people read your poetry, especially those who might be involved in the events. In reviewing my old poems the other day, I came across one that I know would be very hurtful to a friend if I released it, so I left it sitting on my hard drive, unread by the world. I could fictionalize it a little more but in the end I would rather keep it private and let it be true than change so I could publish it.
There is no doubt that writing about yourself comes with a certain degree of personal risk, but I believe the reward is worth the risk. Not only do you get to process the events of your life, but with luck you get an interesting character to write about.
Today’s Poetry Assignment
Write about an event in your life that happened within the past week. Take some time to think about the week and look for event that has some emotional meaning for you, but not so much that it would be painful for you to write about. Sometimes smaller moments have more meaning. Feel free to post your poem in the comments or on your own site with a link back to here. This will give other people the opportunity to read your poem.
Today’s Recommended Poet
While not all of his work is poetry, when it comes to writing about yourself Henry Rollins is about as honest and upfront a writer as you will find. I recently wrote an article, Five Lessons Poets Can Learn From Henry Rollins, that covers some of the same territory as what I wrote about above.
Roomanitarian
Solipsist
Take two, but still not quite eight lines… (I’ll get there)
Gram
Your gram, so sweet an’ old,
sleeping in her musty sheets
I learned more about you from her
than I ever have from you
and it makes me love you more.
My Entry:
Corporate
The CEO is a little round a little short
His eyes sad around their fleshy corners
He is not the energetic go getter CEO
But rather the guy who came up from accounting
The friendly bland number pusher
Who would never say what I am about to say
The verbal slap I give out because
I have over the long term as well as recently
Lost the ability to suffer fools gladly
To silently and loyally accept
The long series of mistakes and disasters
That have lead the CEO
At least twenty pay grades above me
To address our tiny group
Growing tinier by the week
And tell us that everything is going to get better
But that he has no plan
Just like the half dozen people who have preceded him
And told us everything was going to get fixed
And a plan was on the way any time now
Pardon my unwillingness to suspend disbelief
And my too big mouth
But nobody loses five layers of management
In eight months and speaks as if he has provided
Even the most remote sense of leadership
Go back to your office and fiddle with your numbers
I’ll go back to my cube and work on my resume
And you can explain to whoever is left next time
That things are going to get better
Even though you have no plan
No idea
No clue
No heart
And soon
No people
Radiant Shadows
As the winter air nips at my nose
My cheeks
My ears
and the tips of my fingers,
I wait cautiously in the shadows.
The sunlight embraces every other existing life force
Perhaps that is the only reason
Why the sun so mercilessly shuns me
Maybe I’m dead
Maybe I’m alive
There is no death in the embrace of life
And no life in no embrace at all
We are caught
Between worlds we have manifested to be true
Where falsehoods become the only tales comprehendible in the
Judgment of sanity
The gaslight dims and darkens with the passing days
Becoming an orb of celestial luminosity in the face of questions
So I leave
Towards another world
Where the winters are colder
But the light is not so blinding
Jim- Your poem almost made me cry! You completely captured “gram” in her “musty” sheets. Thank you for sharing.
John- I can’t believe it but you have just described my boss…. Excellent poem.
Thanks Sandra,
Just over the long weekend I met my fiancee’s family in Pittsburgh.
Hi Sandra, Thanks for the compliment. I liked the first half of your poem. The life and death philosophical discussion towards the end was a little too esoteric for me to interpret, but then depth has never been my strong suit.
Jim,
You got off to a good start. You should keep going.
Yesterday
the book of your life arrived.
You’re three years dead.
The author began the story
while you still had breath.
I am scarcely mentioned.
The first time we met
I showed you how to crush aspirin
in the bowl of a spoon,
inserting it through the wires
that held your broken jaw
as if I was feeding a baby.
This was at Mal’s.
He showed you my poems.
You told me, “Make the pauses
where the breath would naturally pause
if you were speaking it.
Shelley and Keats did that.”
I could go on listing anecdotes
piled up over twenty years.
But everyone has many yarns
of you, troubadour,
and most remain untold
except when old friends gather.
It’s true I was not central
to your tale. Others, closer,
are also reduced to a line.
She has the essentials.
Still I find it strange
that you are dead and I’m gone.
Liking all these - and especially Jim’s! It says heaps in those few lines.
John - I really liked yours, it is not lyrical - it’s driving. Very powerful.
Rosemary - Not enough good words to say. Restrained emotion, powerful in a very different way. Thank you for sharing it.
And so without further ado…
Each afternoon
the swing the slide
before he sleeps
And in the park
each afternoon
girl not yet two
Her mother’s hair
skin, full lips bright
each afternoon
We start to speak
smile, move away
obliged and small
He watches girl
we start to speak
I can’t explain
my silent boy
girl crying mine
we start to speak
I say my name
then she says hers
We start to speak
each afternoon
Thanks John and Jim!
John, your comment made me laugh. I do tend to go quite deep sometimes in my poetry. I know I need to come up for air every now and then but it’s tough.
Oh, and just to let you know, I was actually excited driving to work today knowing that you would have another poetry assignment set up for us!
Yesterday I heard a song
I was in the car at a Chevron
And I heard that song
From the depths of my music library came the song
But not just the song
Some songs are more like boxes than songs
And listening to it is the key to open the box
Who can find the key to close it?
I heard the song and the box was open
The box of almost one year ago
When I thought I had some control
When life was going well
On a night in October when I was too busy
These all came out of the box
Of the song
The mind has its cues
In one moment a cue can bring back a feeling
A feeling can bring back a picture
And a picture forms into a memory
A cell phone ringing
A cup of coffee
A long walk across campus
A friend telling me I need to sit down
My head in my hands
The drive back home
The time spent with my family
My big family
The hellos
The goodbyes
The laughs
The tears
The preparations
The broken vows
The picking up the pieces after it’s over
And all this out of a simple song
Dear Susan and dear cerebralmum, I love both these highly evocative pieces!
i wrote this after reading an e e cummings poem… and it turned out as almost a response to that poem. it’s elusive, but here goes:
faithful and mad–
why not?
idle Earth-sleep tugs at my skirt
always, which means Nowlove
is the the only Wholelove
there is. and
why not
let us two, us one
be the very reason why I should
forget about my skirt altogether?
meanwhile, I’m watching the Moon
drool all over the sky, and grin
always in casual dizzy
rotation with her neon lover.
She wears him
all over her face - bright
faithful and mad.
alissa, I love e.e. - and I love your poem too, which may be influenced by him but the voice is clearly yours. Oh, I wish I’d written that about the moon!
Rosemary: as someone who has had to care for an ailing relative, I can identify with your poem. Thank you for sharing it.
cerebralmum: That is one tight meter you have embraced. It moves nicely. I’m not entirely clear about what was going on though.
Susan: I think we have a lot of commonalities in our poetry. Both a boon and a curse, I suppose.
alissa : I can see the ee cummings influence. Its like a drug. nice work.
Dear Sandra, Your piece bears re-reading. I return to it and go deeper each time. I more and more love the last four lines in particular.
Flatland Poet
I am full of family
Climbing into a big bed at night
No longer alone, drifting into dreams
Cuddled around a warm rock
No need to draw the blankets tight
Around my neck to scare away the cold
Dragon Fire shelters me in his wings
I crochet blankets, paint walls, walk the dog
Followed by a gray cat
Poetry flashes behind the trees and freezes
A meadow lark on the lawn, yellow breasted
And fawn, while gliding hawks circle above
The sidewalk buckels and bends from old tree roots
I count my flatland friends on two fingers, by the
Hundreds from away from here, this is not a really a town
It is a migrant work camp, we are living on leftovers
From another era, pretending to be real while brick
Streets gather dust and the downtown clock tolls
For the no-thing that never happens here, the noon whistle from
The closed compress has ceased to blow it’s steamy breath
For the lunch hour rush, but the bell tower at the
Church still sings about a birth that is only curious to me
The dragon wants to take me away, into real life, my heart thumps
Deeply, from hunger and from fear, when I paint canvasses
And take photographs and grow herbs I am happy
I can say more than words can tell
Only last week I carried ten years of bear fear into the mountains
I told the story, about my heart eaten by fear
About smelling the bear smelling me smelling her
What is the lesson I asked
The Shaman said maybe the bear was just telling me to hibernate
No wonder I am afraid I said
That night I slept and dreamed of: writing music
Dipping my brush into color, not thinking about bear
I am not my body
I am a labrynth of evergreen hedges
Hiding a garden of rosie crosses. Petal by petal
I have grown me from a eager bud into
Full bloom
cw 8/14/07
Hello everybody, just 2 day i found this site and I think some body should evaluate my useless poem
Here it runs
A memoir of my old school days
I remember my old school days,
The days in which lies,
Some sweet n sour memories,
Of when we did our teachers’ mimicries.
Days when we missed the class,
To go out and lie on the grass,
In the park and just gossip,
And gaze at grazing cattle n sheep
The days when we sat on the floor,
With dust-ants-insects all in store,
I recall the days when we used to brawl,
Roll on the earth and then crawl
And in tiffin break, the leisurely time we got,
We played cricket and just forgot,
About all those damned things,
About our teachers’ abusings and beatings
And after school when we ran home,
Like cage-birds set free to roam,
And how anxiously we waited day-by-day,
Counting how far our summer vacations lay.
And when they came at last,
How we fled home and ran to the vast,
Mango orchard, in the blazing hot noon,
And lo! there is a mango-heap so soon!
How we dived into our village pool,
And swam and swam till we got cool,
And when the vacs came to an end,
How it pained to say bye to such a friend!
But back at school everything was colorful;
Again, and back were the happy ‘puchka’ful;
evenings, along with ‘dahibara’ and ‘chat’;
Names that made my mouth watery and flat.
Those were young, innocent days;
And I wonder how fast time flies;
I’ll certainly grow up, yet
I just wouldn’t let;
These memories to fly past
and be forgot.
Hi Nasim! It’s not a useless poem; it made me recall fondly many similar aspects of my own childhood, and it was a pleasure to recapture them.
John,
that same thing happened to me. I had a horrible boss with
I have to say, WOW!!!
“No idea”
“No clue”
“No heart”
“And soon”
“No people”
He only has one person now compared to five. I know exactly what your saying. Love It!!!
I quite about two years ago but I still keep in touch with two people that work there. God Bless You.
Unknown Language
my body curls
my hair bends
my mouth giberish
but erotic
beaten sensless
my mind struggles
thoughts are too much
my pen is not fast enough
five,ten,fifteen
pages pass like a blurr
thoughts caress every line
a cheep metahpore…..
when too stop
I can’t
my mind explodes on the white canvas
of my life
my eye’s sore
the sun sleeps
the moon plays
animals mate
I stay put
pressure builds
arms weak
undesired results
I go my own way
the moon sleeps
the sun plays
Hi, I’ve been following this on igoogle for a while now, and writing poems when I could. But I’ve been rather busy in my life, and the one that’s helped me the most is the poem about yourself and your experiences. I don’t know if this is still being checked, but I wanted to show my appreciation and possibly get some feedback
There’s a missing beat between our lives
The chain at our hips has a link missing
There’s the faintest hint of an ache in my heart
And a worried knot in my throat when I’m alone
You’re still there laughing at my side
But now there’s nothing funny about it
You’ve gone but didn’t say goodbye
I can feel you there but I can’t get inside
You’ve left me for another friend
I can see it in your smile
It’s lost its ability to spark my own
I’m losing you, my forever friend
Our conversations on the phone
Once rambling happily for hours unfelt
Now drag by the moments and unspoken thoughts
With veiled questions and thoughts in your tone
You’ve cast away our friendship
And you’re dragging me down with it
I feel guilty when I can’t be there for you
Is that how you feel when I’m left out to dry?
I can see the end coming
It started when you began to frown
When you stopped trying to understand
And focused on how I should be more understanding
When you got sick of me being busy
Since you quit the things we used to do
Together
Something’s come between us
And it’s not just our different lives
We’ve dealt with that for many years
It’s the way you deal with the rifts
By distancing yourself further
That’s making me so sad
I can see the end coming
But sooner than you think
For why wait in strained silence?
I’ll just take my secrets and troubles
And care and compassion
And memories
Take all the best things I got from you
And leave with those pieces of my heart
See you later
Friend
Connie: You have stocked your poem with a sea of good images. I might suggest that you do another edit to bring some clarity to the poem.
Nasim: There’s some nice stuff in the poem, but I think the rhyme forced a couple awkward phrases. You might want to do a second edit.
Rhianon: I like the poem. You have a few typos to fix though.
Leah: I know that feeling of loss well.
[...] second assignment from the 30 Poems in 30 Days project. Writing about [...]
That Girl
I say less with my words now
My back catalog of sage influence is enough
for my friends to draw on
And it blinds them to the uncertainty that holds me
Fearful
No longer one of them
Beneath the layers they know
that the path I have chosen, alters
my accessibility
But it is me only, who feels fondly discounted
The creeping distance
One day they will say:
How long has it been
since we knew that girl we loved so well ?
WK: Interesting. I like particularly the opening line and the last verse.
Rianon: Don’t know how I missed this one before. I like it, and especially the image in the last two lines.
Leah: Yes, I’m sure we can all identify! The first verse is my favourite in this piece.
Well, hope my comments on WK, Rianon and Leah get rescued!
Connie, I seem to have overlooked yours too, before. It’s yet another wonderful poem from you!
Not sure if anyone is still paying attention.
This may not sound like it, but does relate an event of the past week.
I’m sure my punctuation is off, and I tried my best with “insensate loneliness” but feel as if the maening may not be correct.
My Star Lives
My Star
Always on my mind
A light in the sky
I cannot tear my eyes away
I shut them…wait til morn…fixate on the sun
Then eve returns and I search the night sky for my Star once again
Why can’t I turn away?
The earth I can touch
The warmth of the sun I feel
A chill November wind is welcome
A respite from the insensate loneliness
But I want my Star
Always out of reach
Only my eyes can touch her
Only my voice can sing out my hearts lament to her
But never will my flesh touch her
My Star lives
But only lets me near in our dreams
It’s never too late to start Jeff. Thank you for adding your poem.
Programme
7:34
it was cold
artificial lights from street posts
and lust clubs
made this lonely night
much more enticing
but sad
masked laughters and faces
chit-chats and cheap gossips
hang from the corner of your dying eyes and
lifts unsuccessfully
the spirit and hope of this dirt-poor alley
–within this
hollow merriment and drunken smiles–
if only you could stop listening to yourself for a while
if only you could make your mind believe on the things you never knew existed
if only you could focus on the things that really matter
you maybe lucky enough
to feel that somewhere
someone will be
swallowing tears
for dinner
It’s one of those painful nights where
after a wasted day at work
everybody looks up and pray for consolations
everybody wants
to witness diamonds
brandishing cosmic blinks burning magically
across their skies
lighting corrupted streets
and hearts
And make
everyone subscribe
to the delusion
that it’s theirs tonight
and theirs only
But there were no stars that night
everybody felt more tired
it was automatic
All have depended on the stars for their own energy
All have let the stars decide whether they
will be happy or sad
Now,
at the most hideous moment
not even prayers
could possess the power
to save these people
from themselves
Just a step away from home
Within these
emotional trolls
He was there
He hates to admit it
but He was one of the ordinary and
He is getting
a little too sick
about this fact
I guess I don’t know how to use this system. The spaces were not right. Ill just try again next time.
Hey John, I just would like to tell you that I learned a lot from this site. And it has opened my mind to a brand new universe of unique possibilities.
Thank you.
Post 2 An incident this week
Stage Fright
I saw her unease, disease, fear in her eyes
I sensed her fight or flight… because I knew
I crooked my finger at her to come to me, to tell her it was ok, she was ok,
Ask God to take your EGO I said, Breathe I said,
Its your story, your life, your experience… speak from the heart, not your head, others will identify and be helped…
She was awesome, inspiring and the whole room roared …
She told of throwing her husband’s prosthesis legs at him in a drunken rage and then hiding them so he could not leave!
Peppers
My wife went hunting Poblano peppers,
or was it the other type, Anaheim?
Either way, she bought the other one
by mistake, and then roasted it
just the same, as though she’d
meant her selection all the while.
Its skin wrinkled and cracked
in the oven, and when she called out
in alarm, I came rushing to find
one large pepper, like a lost shoe,
blackening on the heating coils.
Can you save it? she asked, taking
my hand. Can you save my pepper?
Last week
I answered the phone while reading poems by Rolfe Humpries.
It was late, that was my excuse, and I thought my son’s doctor
was the man who was going to leave me a message about
how I was suppose to be paying for yard service.
Last week
we discovered a lump the size of a quarter
in the back of my son’s neck and took him to the doctor.
I had plenty of worries last week but we added one more.
Last week I wrote twelve poems, six of them litanies
and drove all over to the library, doctor’s office, home.
I could face the world but this week I need you to read
this poem so I feel less alone.
absent
from the touch of hair to prick of pin
hide all away from my skin
leopards spots and zebra stripe
still gives me not the right
the wheel continues of night and day
make it gone
take it away
the pressures still seem to grow
more than many care to know
so sheltered away i will hide
to keep what’s left of my pride.
how do you break away from constant rhyming? and will it happen naturally as progression sets in?
The telephon means little to him
I’m well aware, he’s made it known
but to promise a call that never came
has left me saddened and alone
I went away to spend a night
away from him, with family
I missed him every second away
expecting, begging him to call me
Perhaps he was too busy that day
but can excuses really cover
forgetting about the promise made
to spend five minutes with your lover?
Alas, it’s been a day or two
my number still he didn’t dial
I’ll keep my disappointment inside
and hide it with a pitiful smile.
she’s gone
the first breath of air in so long
she’s gone
taking with her the eggshells that i walk upon
she’s gone
with all the goodbyes, ill miss yous and so longs
all fake
she’s gone
and so the imposter with the phony smile goes too
she’s gone
begging me to wonder if guilt should taint my joy-it doesn’t
she’s gone
leaving questions, but no wish for answers
she’s gone
i’m sorry mother that i can’t love who you are
she’s gone
but not forever-too bad?
Silver Ear Ring
another old hippie
another touch of gray
went down town
for an ear ring yesterday
it hurt some but
it matches my hair
wonder if Jerry
thinks this is fair? KHRansdell 08-03-08
Brittany~
Don’t worry about rhyming, sometimes you will, sometimes you won’t. Just keep writing, and watch what happens.
kenny
badwolfboy