the world mine

I, the poet.
The world - mine!
Captured, in essence
line by line.

**

I used to write a lot of poetry. I honestly don't think I could have gotten through my teen-angst years without the help of many a pathetic couplet. These past few years I've stopped writing as much as I used to, down from one poem a day to maybe one a year. It wasn't until I started going through some creativity activities in a book when I remembered that years ago I actually considered myself a poet - a title I have not felt comfortable claiming for a very long time.

The book is about unblocking creativity. I didn't even consider myself blocked (since I'd spent the last semester creating at least one piece of art every two weeks or so), not until I remembered that I haven't really written anything in recent memory. No stories, no comics, no poetry. And I used to have notebooks and notebooks of writing. Now? I draw. I'll scribble a line or two in my sketchbooks of poetic-type language (the dust remembers the shape of the rain) and then forget about it. Part of me misses creative writing, though. I'm comfortable with written language, far more so than I am with spoken language, as anyone who has spoken to me on the telephone has probably already guessed. It's easier for me to process things through words on a page in a way that I can't do aloud - by the time I've collected my thoughts the conversation has changed.

I wasn't sure about the creativity exercises, didn't know if they would work for me. Then, last week, I came up with four poems in the bath. I think I've written a total of maybe four poems in the past three years. It was amazing. It was like part of myself, long dormant, had finally re-awoken.