The Poet’s Struggle Part 1

By Emily B

We are, as artists, fundamentally trying to capture the unimaginable depth of human emotion. The drive to express and perfect pushes every pen. More than just a poet's hand, the painter, and the photographer’s as well. All with the same burning passion, The inherent passion, of a creator.

As a poet, How do you fully realize an idea, grander than the oceans, while also trying to take up as little space on the page as possible?

Do you burst through the flowery formalities with simplicity.

Do you drive the knife's edge to the heart and risk cutting through complexity.

Or do you preach with the uncommon man's thesaurus and risk alienating your audience?

And how do you deal with the tragedy of a concept, with its infinite potential,

failing to fully actualize on the page, or even more tragically in someone else's mind?

And if the goal is to shape the world with your words, even a small piece of it. How do we ensure our writing is as solid as soldiers will opposed to the evil interpretation? Or do we want to make people question, spark the imagination? How do we light the flame?

I believe, as Joseph Campbell has found in his famous writing “the hero's journey”, We have been writing the same story, the same idea for centuries. I believe we will still write the same story for centuries more. With few exceptions to that very same core idea.

The best writers are of the same breed. Ones who have, or have been taught a critical eye. Who know themselves, and therefore their art. They climb a great tree of stories and pick the apple that, through their own knowledge of self, have deemed through their own subjective eye, the best for their own orchard. And by discarding any seeds that will grow the same mistakes. They cast away the idea of true individualism, and with the knowledge of themselves, (as art is an extension of oneself), creates the basis on which the best stories are made.