The first of my ‘Becoming a poet’ series

It is customary to write a heading with capital letters but I didn’t like the pressure of ‘Poet’. It suggests that I have award myself a knighthood or an Order of Australia Medal or some other self-celebratory aggrandisement that is supposed to be received not grasped.

What has, instead, happened is that I have been transformed into the person I always was.

I’ve been reading over my exegesis, picking up an error here, a typo there, a vague reference or two, and noticing that I am no longer the same person I was three years ago. And here I was thinking I am too old for change.

Is it change if what you are doing is finding who you really were in the first place?

I have spend much of my life—all of my life—behaving in ways to please others. As a child, I quickly learned to read the room and curb my enthusiasms accordingly. I took this skill with me into every new situation and allowed people to gas-light me into thinking I was never enough.

Bitterness is poison. And I won’t allow it.

I’ve moved on from people used me for their own satisfaction and I choose not to be bitter about it. I don’t want to be them.

The last three years has been a time of stripping away the costumes and finally admitting that the thing I thought was a serious character flaw is, in fact, my greatest strength.

I am intense.

I always have been. I find people interesting and puzzling and strange. I notice patterns and bees and the wind. I care very little for small talk and am deeply curious. I like to think, a lot.

And I love words.

Small ‘p’ poet is what I am. Just like I am a small ‘a’ adult, a small ‘g’ girl, and a small ‘c’ chocolate lover. Wait…make that last one capitals! Chocolate Lover…mmm…

I am not making myself small by any stretch of the imagination. You see a Poet—capital P—is someone like Walt Whitman or Sylvia Plath or Louise Glück. I could name some Poets I know personally but that would embarrass them. Poets are regular people, too.

It is others who decide if someone becomes a ‘Poet’ but it is me who knows that I can’t be anything other than a poet. I can’t help but think of images and symbols and the way they connect to each other. I can’t help but want to write it down. And then make it better. Try couplets, then tercets, then back to couplets, watching the meaning bend and stretch as I do.

The past three years of studying under someone that both I and the publishing industry consider a Poet has taught me something significant: being a writer, a poet, is something you discover you were all along. You simply needed to take the time to work at it and make your way past all of the voices that said you weren’t. Your own being the loudest.

Would I like to have lots of poems published? Sure, I love for people to read my work.

Is this post just a way of “justifying” the fact that I don’t have that much out there yet? Nope. Not even one bit. This post is me saying:

Oi! Give yourself permission to be the thing you keep hidden.

You get one shot at this life. Who cares if you are a late-bloomer? Who cares if others have a crack at you? Don’t leave it.

Don’t grow old wishing.