Artistic Statement

I make poetry because I must. It is not choice, but survival— it’s threaded in my bones, sails through the streams of my blood, pulses in the softness of my lungs. I don’t mean to be cliché, but poetry is my therapy, and we all need someone to talk to. I make poetry because it is the only way I can transform the ugliness of humanity into something beautiful, while simultaneously allowing the ugliness to hide within each stanza— it’s both a discord and harmony of noise. I can hide the ugliness in similes about starfish or peppermints or tea leaves. I am a liar in the most beautiful way possible— the flower becomes an ex-lover, the radish becomes a baby, the discarded dinner party invite becomes a sign of abuse. No one tells the (complete) truth, anyways. Whether we want to admit it or not, the truth is always a smidge subjective. Through my words, I hope to move a reader as the wind does a willow trees drooping leaves— softly, without apology. I never tell readers how to interpret my stanzas, but rather let them digest each line and get from it what they wish. To let me have omnipotent power over the interpretations of my poems would make me a god, and that’s not what art is about.

I want free verse poetry. I want a world brimming with people that feel as boundless that writing free verse makes me feel. No one can change the world, I’ve stopped trying. But we each hold the capacity to bring to this life a bit more kindness, a slightly new perspective, or at the very least, a single beautiful metaphor. And when I edit the words of myself or others, especially poetry, I hold the above beliefs close to my heart.

Stay loving, stay kind.

PS: Sorry for being so inactive. School has me swamped, haha.