Every Day Is a Poem by Jacqueline Suskin (manga ereader txt) 📗

wants to follow your special lead and see something they never thought to notice about love, fear, hate, or beauty. It’s our job as writers to add to these abstractions and make them our own.

Here’s an example of addressing

an abstraction:

When you write, which words do you use again and again? Spend some time making a list here, and try to flesh them out, add meat to their trite bones, apply new definitions to their old descriptions. Work your words. When I find a word that feels kind of clunky or overused, I look it up in the thesaurus, following the lead of language page after page, click after click. Write down words you haven’t heard before and use them in your work. Dive into language like it’s a treasure hunt. This is my favorite way to reinvent the wheel as I write, to redesign my feelings in a way that’s accessible and different for my readers. It’s also just so much fun to explore the vast reservoir of words.

Grant yourself permission not to know

every definition and to discover

newness every time you write.

Work your words:

POETIC MINDSET TIP

LET ACCESSIBILITY BE THE INSPIRATION IN ALL COMMUNICATION

The reason for all of this exactness is plain and simple: accessibility. We all want to be understood, and even if we aren’t trying to write poems for everyone, we can work through our thoughts and make them easier for someone else to understand before we communicate them. This can be inspiring for all types of connection. When we ask a person we love for something difficult, a needed change in behavior, a request for honesty or appreciation, having our language come across as comprehensible and clear is really important. This is the art of poetic editing. Are you sharing to the best of your ability? Can you consider applying some tools first so that when you speak or write you’re being as intelligible and as approachable as possible? This practice can reconstruct our ability to relate to one another, to connect on a deeper and more efficient level. A friend once called me a radical communicator. I loved this and attribute my communication skills to my poetic mindset. My ability to speak clearly and fully comes from my consistent engagement with language and the fact that I believe each word carries great importance.

chapter 5

USE YOUR SENSES

But poetry is a portal through

which we glimpse the shimmering

inner core of sentience itself.

— PAUL BROKS

With any one of our senses, we can uncover a wealth of inspiration. I smell the blooming jasmine and let it spark a memory of my first visit to Los Angeles, and then a poem begins to form. I touch a soft shirt in the back of my closet that belongs to an ex-partner and am shocked into the pain of that time period, only to write a tribute that re-creates the love I once felt for that person and affords me some new closure. I hear a melody and suddenly compare the high-pitched sound of the violin to my outrage over the current political climate. I taste a bite of key lime pie and my entire childhood unravels in the flavor, revealing the power the body holds over our experience. All of these connections create space for self-reflection, remembrance, and clarity, which is helpful when I might otherwise be having a hard time locating beauty or happiness.

My senses are innate tools that reveal

grandeur in the ordinary if I choose to use

them this way, and they wake me up to the

plentiful splendor that surrounds us all.

I like to move through each one of my senses to discover what they expose. This can be like a game of finding the silver lining, as I choose to let each sense illuminate something positive or profound. It’s my way of letting my imagination be an active thing that expresses itself through my body, sense by sense.

When I hear something, the nature of sound waves can wow me, the thing I hear can move my spirit. Just a note can express passion or sorrow. Each sound carries its own influence. The traffic outside my door is a calming white noise. The muffled voices of my neighbors make me nostalgic for childhood, when my parents would have a dinner party while I was falling asleep in the next room.

When I smell something, I’m taken backward in time. The geranium makes me think of my grandma, and I can suddenly access the unconditional love she gave me. The nasty stench of hot garbage makes me long for an incredible summer I once spent in New York City.

When I taste something, I’m taken to landscapes I’ve yet to visit. This tin of delicious mackerel transports me to the Spanish coast. The flavor of this tiger nut is so new, like nothing I’ve ever tasted, and I have to find unique words to describe its sweetness.

When I touch someone, or something, so much information passes through my fingertips. I process some of it, but if I pay closer attention, I might access a trauma or a joy that only touch can create. My hand on another person’s hand helps me delve into our connection. My hand on an old piece of redwood aids my recollection of climbing trees in Northern California.

When I see something beautiful, I can simply write down what I see, and revisiting that image later is soothing, comforting, and expansive because I can ask myself, Why is it beautiful? How can my eyes see such dimension, such color, such detail? And with this, I’m standing in awe again.

I Can Stay

Only the strong scent

of blooming citrus

and the sound of banana leaves

moving in the wind

can save me tonight.

I got lost,

got a parking ticket

and I feel