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| DON'T I LOOK SO CUTE GOSH |
I’ll be so for real I’m coming down from the high yesterday it was so good like everything was just so fucking good. The vibes, the atmosphere UGH EVERYTHING I LEARNed so much about poetry.
From the seminars, I learned that poetry is the thing that gives you access to what you can’t normally see, like in ekpharsis. Whether you’re a reader or a writer, poetry in its distilled form makes you sit with something and think about it. It deals with memory—how we can never see things objectively, tainted with our own unique colour, or maybe how we’ll never see certain parts of ourselves for whatever reason because they’re gone. The poets talk about family memories a lot, namely how how do you create a family history when so much of an archive is lost?
Poetry is the thing that empowers communities to speak, to say how they feel and talk about things on their terms. I think of the South Asian poetry a speaker brought up, or the peasant women making zines about their connection with the land. I think about publication like how there’s never a shortage of spaces for people to share their stuff and we need MORE spaces, MORE ART, MORE STORIES SIMPLY BECAUSE WE WANT TO CONNECT WITH SOMEONES INNER WORLD AND MIND.
I also love the atmosphere of the bar yesterday. The lights were neon and dark blue. The ceiling all had this stain glass sort of look which feels otherworldly and camp.
I ate so much I felt nauseous. It was amazing Indian food —butter chicken gravy, baked salmon, Indian grilled chicken, naan bread with big burnt spots, seafood fried rice, burritos and wraps with cheese and big chunks of zucchini, nachos with fresh tomato’s and guacamole, soft potato wedges and the most decadent brownies. It was fantastic I wish I ate even more GOSH!!
And then the readings. I love poetry readings now. It’s an intentional space where everyone sits in a room and listen to one person get on stage and read their poems. It’s different from reading it from a page, because you hear the way a poem sounds in the poet's head while they write it.
You hear their cadences, their accent, the way they pronounce words all affect the way a poem is meant to be experienced and i realise we’ll never get to hear how old times poems are MEANT to sound from the writers. I think that’s such a shame but it makes me more grateful for currently alive poets who can bring their stuff to life.
I saw someone close his eyes—a theologian—while listening to someone read and I did the same. I closed my eyes and I concentrated better, focused more on the quality of their voice rather than the words themselves.
Everyone is so understanding too. Someone said their poem is experimental and everyone cheered. Real ones understand that your drafts are messy and imperfect. I guess that helps assuage the imposter syndrome. Real ones understand that you need time to grow and perfect things. Capitalism and productivity culture expects perfection right off the bat and that's not always realistic especially if you're new. Be patient with yourself and with others, please!!
Regardless, I love how much love everyone has for one another in that room, how there's so much love and respect for poetry. It was an inspiring place to be in, to learn and experience the joy of writing, of loving the craft of writing. It makes me want to write and be more thoughtful too… It's one of those experiences where I felt like I've grown as a person just by going there.
Best three days ever. It’s like an elevated version of a school camp but a taste taste of a writing sabbatical.
Another note I realise is how... 'self-assured' everyone is. Every one of these posts seem so confident in their own path, like they’re vaguely untouchable. Everyone has such illustrative careers of their own, probably because they're older, but it makes me think I want to have a story of my own to share too. People have literary journals and translated poems with videos, and I think damn, I want to be cool too.
I was feeling envious of a few people while editing this blog post, and I realise what other people are doing and posting online literally does not matter to me in any way. I'm on my own path and I have things to do for myself, whether it's little things like writing this blog, sleeping early, drinking water, writing fan fiction, etc, or bigger things like my thesis— I have control over those things, and I'm on my own race and journey.
At any rate, I like to think these poets are cool because they’re grown men and women who know what they want and what they want to talk about. They’re in their own worlds and they’re in love with their inner worlds and surroundings, love it so much they start writing and even then they love the act of writing too because it’s so intimately connected to the mind and the self and soul.
I feel like I’ve ascended and I want to be more thoughtful of my own creative practice. Someone said a museum without curation is a junkyard and I guess life is the same. I’m inspired to be a better more creative version of myself. I want to ✨ascend ✨ and be fuller and have what they say “an incandescent mind”.
If this is the person I could be then I’ll work hard to get there! We’re all on our own journeys. This really changed my life and I’m grateful I sent that email to volunteer, and I’m glad to have experienced even a slice of everyone’s greatness.
May I too achieve even a fraction of their power.
I feel I’m still processing what all these experiences mean to me as a person… but I guess we have time to put it all together and do better. I can’t wait to see where I go!! I wish the event lasted longer so I can learn more, learn so much until I get sick of learning!
Preferably without the food coma… maybe it’s the high of the food talking and I’m just larping. Oops!
I wrote this a month ago lol.
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