SBM Poetically Powered Newsletter, December Edition: Poetic Evolution / I Finally Went And Did Something
SBM Poetically Powered Newsletter, December Edition: Poetic Evolution / I Finally Went And Did Something
Welcome to December! Cue buying things, signal the year is going to be over, and for fuck seriously?! I feel like I’ve gone through a bout of poetic evolution. My poetry doesn’t feel the same from a year ago or even six months ago. It feels very different, and in that difference, I don’t feel as secure about it. It’s not that I think this poetry is weaker, far from it, it’s like it is an invading infection, and my body is throwing antibodies at it. It’s going— How can this be a part of me when it doesn’t feel like a part of me? Of course, I don’t feel like the same person but far from it.
I want to start my third book, but I don’t know what it wants to be. My process is to find the name of the book first. The name then uncovers the potential theme of the book. Buried Bones Home was everything I’ve been through since its culmination. That period of losing everything I own, my home, everything you can imagine, and rebuilding myself from nothing. It also was about confronting the mental illness I’ve had since I was a kid, but I just pretended this was what it was. You need to “get over it” depression, anxiety, assaults, and other things I’ve lived with.
Swallow My Sparrow came quickly to me as a title. I saw a sparrow emerging from its larynx cage and all the expectations people put on you. You need to be this or that. You need to act a certain way. You need to keep secrets to be loved. I shed all that and went deeper into mental illnesses like PTSD and suicidal ideation. I accessed parts of my history and past that I never talked about. I dug deeper in but also wanted to shed the perceptions that were a part of me but were never part of who I was—embracing that metamorphosis and escape of a caged creature that learns to fly again from it.
I’ve made probably 6-8 chapbooks for competitions. They haven’t won, so they collected, but each one I loved: one was on gender, and how I view it now, another was a spinning it positive/reclaiming your life into power chapbook I sent to a friend, and she just loved. I think of what I’ve written and the evolution I’ve gone through. In a chapbook workshop, I attended, what I was trying to make in it was so different than what I’m doing now.
I have a specific folder for the titles of books. Generally, they’re poetry titles that hit so well that I save them inside there. I know if I find the name, I’ll find my book. It’s not as simple as the first two times I’ve done it. I also create a book by making a folder in my notes specifically for putting poems in this folder to craft what it’ll look like. It’s all a process that hasn’t been easy or accessible this whole year.
Every time I share a new poem I’ve made, there’s a part of me going, “you’re saying too much. Be a little vaguer. Don’t give them an idea of what’s happening.” I want it to be all metaphors, smoke, and mirrors, not a clue what’s happening except that beauty of language to sound so glorious and you still scratch your head to what is happening. But, you’re kind of there for the vision of it all.
Instead, my language is more direct, depending on the poem. The strange thing is more pieces with less anger are coming about. I’ve been angry for so long, and it’s done nothing but burn a hole through me. Whoever or whatever I’m angry at doesn’t know. So, I expend all this rage at it or them, and it doesn’t benefit anything except burning the fuel of energy. I have so little left over from this burn of energy on something that doesn’t have a clue it’s going on. My poems at the beginning of my doing spoken word again were so filled with rage. With screaming. With so much energy going into them. I think that’s naturally what I do. I go to the place of hurt and relive it when I say it out loud, even if it hurts. But, lately, I don’t have the energy for anything, including the fuel for rage. Rage takes too much energy, and I barely have enough to get by and be here. So, my pieces spoken out loud have less of the power behind them of a hidden scream and more of a silent, gut-shaking ache I can’t ever seem to remove. It’s just that quiet voice of how pain takes your breath away.
I don’t know how this will translate into a slam. I’ve always been a powerful, loud voice in a poem because there’s a lot of emotion behind them. My softest piece is “A tree fell on top of me,” which has been a favorite for people hearing me slam. It doesn’t start powerhouse. It’s a quiet defeat entry. After all, I won’t reveal the turn until the midpoint because I want to confirm what I’m talking about. I don’t want people to think it’s a cute poem about a tree falling, and we don’t know if it did if we can’t see it. It’s a true parable of one of the assaults I lived through and how it kept happening.
As I say every month, I hope to bring back my workshops in either December or January, and I finally came through to get one available! I’m super stoked about all the information you get for $20 and the Google classroom participants can interact with me on there and my audio file that is posted on there and will be sent to your email as well if you sign up. I have a lot of ideas written down for new ones to play with and also many poems to study/discuss and drag prompts from poems I’ve collected over the months. I will also have stickers coming that I drew the art behind them where the words are in my handwriting: “Weird Is Wonderful” with a Nautilus and “We are more than what we fear” with a vampire squid. I started drawing unknown/little-known species earlier this year and paired words with them, and those two are two of the favorites that I’ll have on my site for you to buy, or I can send them to you if you’re a Patreon supporter (to be a supporter it's this link here: https://www.patreon.com/sarahmentalpoet) with a card thanking for you your support. It’ll be a nice little gift for Christmas coming up as a thank you to my supporters there, so message me your address, and I can send it to you.
For what’s coming up for me, I’ll send you to: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-big-poetry-slam-and-bookfair-tickets-466612750297?aff=SarahMentalBF for buying tickets for the Big Poetry Slam and Book Fair with Write About Now Poetry, December 20th, at 7:30 at Rudyard’s. I don’t know how good I’ll be at slamming, but I want to premier at least one or two new poems on my heart.
Since the holidays are coming up and now I’m an indie/local creator, my merch is here: https://sarahbellummental.com/merch/ and includes “Consent Is Sexy / Turn Life Into Poetry / Poet Doing Poet Things, etc.” shirts and things for you to get if you want a poetry themed gift for yourself or those you love. My books are all from indie publishers in New Mexico that published my two books, and their link is: https://sarahbellummental.com/pre-order-swallow-my-sparrow/
Finally, I did the thing! I did the thing of making a workshop which can be worked around your schedule and you can do at your own pace. This is my newest: https://sarahbellummental.com/the-brightness-besides-us-poetry-workshop Brightness Beside Us workshop that includes a Google classroom where you can use that as an interactive hub and posting your poems for feedback, a pre-recording of my voice guiding you through the materials, and over ten prompts and some questions to get the poetic jar flowing inside you. I’m proud of all this workshop offers and it works with your schedule however that may be. My schedule has been so impossible I can’t hold virtual, in-person workshops as easily since it’s wonky as all shit, but this one you get and can have forever and a day. I’m really happy with this workshop because it looks into the bright beside us that we just gotta turn our heads to see.
Listening to: Painter in your pocket, Destroyer
Reading: I just finished “The Land Of Nod,” a poetry book I can’t recommend enough. This is a “just finished/ gotta reread in a week” book for what you missed in the first read. Also, finished Tristan’s Not All Challenges Are For Us and WOW, do I gotta say did that hit and was one of those books you’ll hold close. Definitely these two books have been just some of the best I’ve read recently.
I am getting ready for: the poetry slam. I have to unearth my slam cards and show the folks on here my memorization process.
I’m signing off and if you read this, thank you. I feel especially. Lately, I’ve been writing, but does it matter? And your reading makes me realize maybe it does, and I know yours does.