Poetry as Therapy

Life hands us lovely days and awful ones; angry thunderstorms roll in that eventually fade to reveal cheery skies.  The sun rises to light our way, always setting to give darkness due time.  Every individual faces trials, feeling the weight of fear and sorrow as well as the immense relief that comes at their passing.

"No one is without troubles, without personal hardships and genuine challenges.  That fact may not be obvious because most people don't advertise their woes and heartaches.  But nobody, not even the purest heart, escapes life without suffering battle scars."  — Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, & Grumblings for Every Day of the Year) Coping with one's feelings during hardships, finding a healthy way to manage, can often be as challenging as surviving the trial itself.  For some of us, it may be the most trying part.  To think you can escape or anesthetize or ignore your scarred emotions, believing they will somehow no longer exist is like turning your back on the sun day after day believing this will negate its effects.  The sun was meant to shine and to warm the world, as emotions were meant to give experience and meaning to our lives.  Yes, even awful emotions have a place.  Various tools exist to promote healing during tribulations; all of them require the courage to feel.   Poetry is one such tool—my frequent therapy of choice.  When I sit down to pen out a poem, it is with the intent of expressing the emotions and experiences consuming me at the moment.  It is a healing exercise to struggle with mixing words and my own feelings, pairing them up until I find myself mumbling creative lines that match exactly the sentiments gripping my heart.  Perhaps I do this to better understand myself, knowing if I can communicate well enough, others in similar circumstances will feel and empathize and understand.  I have written poems in the happiest of moods and in the depths of despair.  It may be that when you write, you choose to share your verse with others or with no one.  Either way, growth, cleansing, relief all come from the process. I Danced with Gods Last night I danced.  My body rose from its slump for the first time since the beginning of sorrows—my fingers beckoning to the stars at arm's length, back arching as tingles bubbled up my spine, hips caught in a silent tempo while on tiptoe I twirled in endless euphoric circles. It didn't matter that you loved me or that you didn't. For I was wanted by the gods last night; their seraphs and muses descending on moonbeams into my midst, caressing my face and gliding their spirited arms about my waist, lifting my toes from the soil that I might feel what it is to fly without heaviness of heart. I danced with them under the glow of a loyal moon. For one brief, visceral dance I joyed as Heaven joys—in endless bliss. And the universe cherished me.  — Richelle E. Goodrich  Abandoned The word alone sends shudders down a sensitive spine, troubling the thoughts of pained souls as their hurt swells in ripples. It is a sentence of undesired solitude often pronounced on the innocent, the trusting—administered without warning or satisfactory cause. One day the moon is yours, or so you believe. The next, his countenance transforms from Jekyll to Hyde with no intention of ever turning back, and you are left trampled upon in a deserted street, concealed by dirty fog that squelches all illumination or any hope for future rays of light. It is the worst of mysteries why a beast considered noble would forsake his duty, exhibiting a heart of stone. And all who once looked on him, now turn down their eyes and suffer, beguiled. Some poisons have no antidote, but are slow, silent, torturous ends that curl up the broken body swept into a cold, dark corner. There she is left to drown in her tears—a dying heart. Abandoned.   — Richelle E. Goodrich  All That I Have  My spirit mirrors the radiance of a clear, blue sky. With closed eyes I lift my face and smile, warmed from the core and from above. All hopes and dreams compete with this endless expanse of heaven, desiring the clock of eternity. I reach with my hands―frenziedly achieving―attempting to learn and do all. Yet I understand the humble truth; a drop of rain shall amount to my contribution among all the droplets in the vast ocean of human history. It is a pure and precious tear that seeps from my efforts....my existence. Taste how sweet! It is all I have, given willingly.                     — Richelle E. Goodrich  Do I Love You I stand in the night and stare up at a lone star, wondering what love means.  You whisper your desire—do I love you?  I dare say yes.  But my eyes drift back to that solitary star; my mind is plagued with intimate uncertainty. What art thou, Love?  Tell me. I contemplate what I know—the qualities love doth not possess.  Love lifts no cruel or unkind hand, for it seeketh no harm.  It shirks from constraints and demands, for tyranny is not love.  A boisterous voice never crosses love's lips, for to speak with thunder chases its very presence from the heart.  Love inflicts no pain, no fear, no misery, but conquers all such foes.  It is said love is not selfish, yet it does not guilt those who are.  On a heart unwillingly given it stakes no claim.  Love is nothing from Pandora's box; it is no evil, sin, or sorrow unleashed on this world. My eyes glimmer as the star I gaze upon twinkles with brightness I do not possess.  I recognize my smallness—my ignorance of the One whose hands placed that star in the heavens for me. He is love.  By His own mouth He proclaimed it. Again the whispered question hits my ear—do I love you?  I dare say yes.  But my eyes squint tight, wishing on a lonely star, wondering what love means.  — Richelle E. Goodrich Copyright 2012 Richelle E. Goodrich

    

Writer's Nightmare

"A daydreamer is a writer 
just waiting for pen and paper."

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Where do stories come from?  How does an author conjure up new adventures, new characters, and realities that seem to peel off the printed page?  How do they engage the reader's imagination so effectively?  And how is it that so many diverse tales even exist, with more scribbled out daily to add to a truly endless library? 

The fact that billions of unique people enter and leave this world (and perhaps other worlds) is proof that at least that many unique stories are possible.  But how do authors think up these wild tales?  Though this is a frequently asked question, there is no single answer--no perfect process.

Some say that artistic insight is granted by the Muses, and that it can be robbed from a writer by the same beautiful goddess of inspiration.  Others account for creativity by calling it talent--a gift from God that improves with use.  There's also the thought that inspiration is whispered influence from ghosts of past poets and authors.  And still others attribute an unsettled mind or unbridled imagination as the spring of creative writing.  Genius?  Madness?  Delusions?  Dreams?  Or the gift of an enchanted pen?

I believe...  " Artistry exists in everyone.  What makes it blossom is a soul's personal desire to find an outlet for expression." 

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

In the same way that people are not born with identical characteristics, writers are not inspired in the same fashion, nor for the same reasons.  Some require outside stimuli to spark a creative flame, needing environmental immersion in music or softy-whispered poetry.  Some prefer to be surrounded by panoramas of artwork, collectibles, or a library of favorite books where every glance is tied to memories that act as prompts for fresh ideas.  

Many writers read incessantly for inspiration, taking in a wealth of finely-narrated stories, allowing these adventures to swirl and blend in their subconscious until new ideas emerge, borrowed from proven talent.  Still other authors formulate their best stories from everyday experiences; adopting the hobby of 'people watching' in order to develop realistic and colorful characters.  They often write in public settings--at a central table or hidden in a corner--to observe human interactions when not engaged in furious bouts of writing.  Some books are simply the result of adoration for another being's existence.  

Then there are artists, like myself, who work best in the absence of stimuli, craving peace and utter silence.  Perhaps this is because of being easily distracted.  Or because imagination treads as warily and timidly as its mistress, willing to abandon inhibitions only in solitude.  Or, perhaps it is that silence allows the whispers of muses to reach the ear, while stillness invites the gentle hand of divine inspiration.  

"Some build their castles 'mid thunderbolts and fireworks.  

My worlds take shape in silence."

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

And that brings me to another place of serenity where many have been inspired to write.  I speak of the extraordinary realm of dreams.  Whether hypnotized by a vivid daydream or overcome by sleep, raven to the winds of fantasy, the creative process sprouts wings within a disencumbered mind.  Imagination runs wild, as they say, because nothing is absurd or unreal or nonsensical in Dreamland.  Dreams innocently grasp the possibility of anything!  The trick is - during that hazy state between slumber and cognizance - to quickly memorize the performance before it evaporates in the light of reason.

Regardless of the circumstances and means for artistic creativity, all authors will agree that when immersed in the process, writing is a passionate experience.  The hours spent forming a written work can make one obsessive, distracted, compulsive, and neurotic even, especially when it comes to those rare, precious occasions of streaming pure inspiration.  To have a muse moment interrupted - to watch her scuttle back into hiding with unshared insight remaining on the tip of her tongue - is a wicked irritation.  When a writer's eyes glaze over, when she stares off at nothing or appears to be memorizing the lines on a blank page, when she falls asleep at the desk.......tiptoe softly.  For a writer's greatest desire is to receive inspiration; her greatest nightmare, to have tossed to the wind what could've been captured in words.  

WRITER'S NIGHTMARE

By Richelle E. Goodrich

I felt a grip on my arm that shook my body, forcefully pulling me toward a tunnel of darkness.   The threat of consciousness stole my steady breath. For a moment I believed myself to be under siege; ripped from the sky in mid flight, my wings useless against the monstrous claws shredding my reality. I struggled to remain, to be left alone, aloft.  Reaching with wings that through the power of imagination were suddenly feathered arms, I grabbed at the air.  My hands clutched at something solid.  Wooden.  A desk.  My head spun as I held the furniture, suffering the illusion of falling.  

"I was flying," I gasped, realizing suddenly that it had all been a dream. "My best fantasy ever."  

Lifting my head from its resting spot on the writing desk, I worked mentally to secure the fading images, hoping to capture their essence to memory before they faded away forever.  Bitterness tainted my heart against the hand that had jerked me into sensibility.  Why was I always so callously awakened while doing my best work?  Why not let me dream?

What no (spouse) of a writer can ever understand is 

that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window.  

~Burton Rascoe