What are some tips to writing poetry?
Find the softest, darkest bruise. Press with your thumb until the hurt starts to make sense.
This ask from six years ago has been bouncing around my head lately for some reason and I really wanted to revisit it. I don’t think it’s… bad advice, necessarily. I think you can make some very good art this way, and I think it’s possible to healthily and productively revisit, process, and make art about the things that have hurt you.
But if I could give any advice to young poets, knowing what I know now, it’s this:
Not everything needs to be a poem. Not everything is ready to be a poem. And not everything that needs to be a poem needs to be shown to the world. Sometimes, you need to sit with things. You need the safety of privacy to process them. Sometimes, even when you have processed it, there is nothing to be gained by returning to it.
And it can be really difficult to learn the difference between things which need unpacking and things which need space to heal. You will get this wrong, sometimes. It’s okay to get it wrong. What’s important is to allow yourself to learn from those mistakes and not to trick yourself into thinking the pain is simply part of the process. The pain is not part of the process. If you are finding no comfort, no catharsis, no closure, please step back and reevaluate why you are doing what you’re doing and what you hope to get out of it.
It is okay to let old hurts lie. Hurting is not the only way the work gets done. You do not have to keep pushing your thumb into the same old bruises.
