The art of transforming observation into experience

Twice in a week,

Poetry came up.

I took that as a sign to discuss poets.

What do I know of poets? I know middle school verses, the poets of high school assignments, The New Yorker, poets of Instagram? Do these even count?

"Amateur," whispers the lodged part of me, the uncertain one.

The expanded version of me says the pursuit to understand poetry’s creation is mine to claim, while perfecting poetry belongs to others.

So we begin.

As always, each issue strives to make connections between how creators create, in this case how poets craft poems, and all the ways we may benefit from their strategies.

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What if it was your job to remember a century's worth of details - bloodlines, territorial disputes, who loved whom, who hated whom, and why the gods were particularly cranky this season?

No books, no scrolls, no cloud, no google docs. Simply, humans recalling human and deity history, perhaps around a fire, weaving words into their memory, because that's what they have.

How would you do it?

During the Dawn of History, one of humanity's earliest recorded poems originates from the Vedic tradition, dating back to around 1500 1000 BCE.

Thousands of years ago, someone declared “Sangha Chadhdam” as worthy for eternity’s memory. It is a poem set to song.

"May you move in harmony. Speak in one voice. May our purpose be the same. May our intentions and aspirations be alike. A common objective unifies us all. Let your minds know each other."

Fast-forward through millennia of human drama, and we discover something extraordinary buried in the ruins of Nineveh (modern-day Mosul, Iraq): 15,000 fragments of cuneiform tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal.

Among them? Five Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh, including what might be the world's oldest love poem, chronicling a king's divine romance with the goddess Inanna.

Ancient poets were wrestling with love, power, mortality, and what it means to be human.

The Greeks gave us the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” epic poems that are the Marvel Universe of ancient literature. Virgil crafted the “Aeneid” as Rome's national epic, proving that even empires need origin stories.

Poetry is as old as the first human who looked around their neighborhood and thought, "What is happening here?" and decided to make sense of it through rhythm, rhyme, and metaphor.

The thread continues, unbroken, through every civilization that ever existed.

Somewhere along poetry's timeline, the poet's purpose shifts from recording history to personal expression. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes about it in 1841 in his essay 'The Poet.' He proposes that man 'is only half himself, the other half is his expression.'

Purpose has entered the scene and infuses daily life. Take breakfast, for example. Slamming a grapefruit while walking out the door abandons awareness on the doorstep.

Awareness, attention, and a sense of incredulity that we get to participate in life at all- this is a poet's calling.

And a poem for the evening, when life feels fragile with competing love and dread.

Poetry is filled with contradictions and doesn’t attempt to resolve them.

Through poetry, we process complex emotions with precise language and connect our personal experiences to universal themes.

Which brings us to a poet who understands exactly what poetry should and shouldn't do to us.

Poetry is an experience that change us before we fully understand it.

Billy Collins understands this. He suggests that often our approach turns poetry into a scavenger hunt for hidden meanings instead of letting it work on you. He advocates for wonder over analysis.

And here's one more that shows this principle in action Mary Oliver's 'The Journey,' which tells of a profound experience in a creator’s life.

The ancient human impulse to make sense of our world through careful attention and precise tools isn't just for poets.

It belongs to you too. This practice of moving through the world with heightened awareness, finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, connecting your inner experience to something larger than yourself this is your birthright as a creator.

The Universal Creative Process: Here's a few observations based on reading loose studies on poets and poet’s descriptions of their process.

Creator’s in other disciplines do something similar:

Poets tend to use "discovery drafting" (writing) to find out what they want to say, not because they already know. Some have described it as “controlled chaos" letting ideas flow, then shaping them.

What other creators do:

Poets average 15-20+ drafts per poem.

What other creators do:

Limitations spark creativity. Sonnets, haikus, formal structures don't restrict they liberate by forcing innovation within boundaries. Constraints focus creativity.

What other creators discover:

Poets participate in workshop culture, seek peer feedback, engage with their creative community throughout the process not just at the end. Creating in isolation is like trying to see your face without a mirror.

What other creators need:

We lost an incredible poet on Tuesday, July 14th. Andrea Gibson passed away at 49 from cancer, in Boulder, Colorado.

Her poem “Tincture” hits with such profundity it literally hurts to read. If formatting is off below, read here.

Tincture

By Andrea Gibson

Imagine, when a human dies,
the soul misses the body, actually grieves
the loss of its hands and all
they could hold. Misses the throat closing shy
reading out loud on the first day of school.
Imagine the soul misses the stubbed toe,
the loose tooth, the funny bone. The soul still asks, Why
does the funny bone do that? It’s just weird.
Imagine the soul misses the thirsty garden cheeks
watered by grief. Misses how the body could sleep
through a dream. What else can sleep through a dream?
What else can laugh? What else can wrinkle
the smile’s autograph? Imagine the soul misses each falling
eyelash waiting to be a wish. Misses the wrist
screaming away the blade. The soul misses the lisp,
the stutter, the limp. The soul misses the holy bruise
blue from that army of blood rushing to the wound’s side.
When a human dies, the soul searches the universe
for something blushing, something shaking
in the cold, something that scars, sweeps
the universe for patience worn thin,
the last nerve fighting for its life, the voice box
aching to be heard. The soul misses the way
the body would hold another body and not be two bodies
but one pleading god doubled in grace.
The soul misses how the mind told the body,
You have fallen from grace. And the body said,
Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse.
There isn’t a single page in the bible that can wince,
that can clumsy, that can freckle, that can hunger.
Imagine the soul misses hunger, emptiness,
rage, the fist that was never taught to curl—curled,
the teeth that were never taught to clench—clenched,
the body that was never taught to make love—made love
like a hungry ghost digging its way out of the grave.
The soul misses the unforever of old age, the skin
that no longer fits. The soul misses every single day
the body was sick, the now it forced, the here
it built from the fever. Fever is how the body prays,
how it burns and begs for another average day.
The soul misses the legs creaking
up the stairs, misses the fear that climbed
up the vocal cords to curse the wheelchair.
The soul misses what the body could not let go—
what else could hold on that tightly to everything?
What else could see hear the chain of a swingset
and fall to its knees? What else could touch
a screen door and taste lemonade?
What else could come back from a war
and not come back? But still try to live? Still try
to lullaby? When a human dies the soul moves
through the universe trying to describe how a body trembles
when it’s lost, softens when it’s safe, how a wound would heal
given nothing but time. Do you understand? Nothing in space can
imagine it. No comet, no nebula, no ray of light
can fathom the landscape of awe, the heat of shame.
The fingertips pulling the first gray hair
and throwing it away. I can’t imagine it,
the stars say. Tell us again about goosebumps.
Tell us again about pain.

From Lord of the Butterflies (Button Poetry, 2018) by Andrea Gibson.

Get on with it. That’s all I’ve got left to say today.

The Commencement of Autumn: Collaborative Video Dance Project

The Purpose: A collaborative dance video created from video clips submitted by this community.

Your Role: Take Darla's 6 tips and everything you've learned about certainty over the last three issues. (Link to video in comments).

Create a 45-second to 1-minute dance to music of your choice, inspired by the theme "The Commencement of Autumn." 

Yes, the beginning of Autumn and what it means and/or represents to you.

Our Role: I'll combine all videos into one continuous piece (with full credit to each dancer) and publish "The Commencement of Autumn" in the September 4th issue and across all social media channels.

Your Deadline: July 30th, 2025

Details:

Technical Requirements:

Here's the video of Darla’s suggestions for creating dance.

📖 HERE’S A COMPREHENSIVE LIST poetry and writing conferences and residencies coming up!