As an expression of emotion and pain, I strongly feel that poetry can be an extremely effective tool. I’ve been intermittently writing poetry/songs for the two years or so, and it has helped me gather my thoughts and emotions in times when my hell brain was causing a lot of problems for me. It was introduced to me as a form of therapy; an outlet to express things that one might have trouble articulating in typical therapeutic mediums, like conversational therapy. I have chosen my personal project as poetry; I plan to write poetry in an attempt to articulate my thoughts and feelings on world issues, and on the issues I see around myself. While my typical solution obviously wouldn’t be an actively violent one, choosing to express my feelings through poetry is a lot less “violent” than letting my frustration and resentment build inside of me.
My course of action is that any time in the next few weeks I’m confronted with a situation that bothers me, that I normally would do my best to ignore, to write poetry about my feelings on the subject. This could range from thoughts of social injustice being on my mind, to stresses regarding every day college life. This kind of mindfulness will, I hope, make me a more well-balanced person with less violent resentment building inside me. I’m not sure what I want to do with these poems after they’re written, but maybe if I decide to show some people, that it helps someone feel slightly less alone in some way or another. If this is the case, I’ll be more than happy with the results of my project.
Sam, I very much appreciate another creative mind using literature as a means of nonviolent activism. I agree with you that poetry is a very powerful tool for therapy. To me, poetry is the superior art. I love your project, and I wish you much luck with it. Constructively, I think if you challenge yourself and focus your poetry more on social injustices you’ll benefit from the project more. Also, I think it would be fruitful, and only if you felt comfortable doing this, if you disseminated your poetry to the campus community somehow or performed at an open mic.