Before I write my last poem of the month, I wanted to talk about my personal growth during this month. I never imagined the places I would have gone when I set this challenge for myself. Going into this month, I had written a total of about 18 poems in my entire life. I am not counting unfinished poems either. So the idea of writing 30 was a little scary considering that those 18 poems were written when I was emotional.
I was very concerned on where I was not only going to get the material from, but where was I going to get the motivation. I am not that depressed person anymore and I certainly didn’t want to walk down the street and write about poems about everything I see. So, I had to dig deep and find something that I was going to write about. I wrote the first 3 poems in one day. After that, it was process that went from barely making it because of work and almost falling into writer’s block. Clearly, this blog suffered as a result. The next 10 poems after that were not all that difficult to write.
By the time I got to Poem #15: Number 42, I was scared. I barely squeaked that one out because I had no idea what to say. It just happened to be Jackie Robinson day and I decided to run with it. Interestingly enough, there was a thought that I was half way there and I was not going to even stop. So I had to spend most of my days looking for some sort of motivation. I thought about how I wanted to do a poem in Spanish. But in order to do that, I needed to write it first. I was still at Poem #12: Intensity when I came up with idea. I had not even wrote it yet, but I knew what it was going to be about. With the struggle of coming up with day to day poems I was also in the process of writing My Butterfly/Mi Mariposa which came out 6 poems later. Once that came out, It was all down hill from there. I actually hit my stride at Poem #21: Manipulator.
There was a point where I woke up one night and I realized that I dreamed about words. Is this what true poets do? I have heard that crazy mathematicians dream about numbers, but I am no where near that level of crazy. The words were flying in the air and I would pick them out like I was popping bubbles. It was crazy. When things like that occur, I know that I have to keep going.
There is another thing that I did not expect, please understand that I am a humble individual, the amount of people that I know and those that I do not know that have encouraged me through this process. It made getting to this point easier. Thanks to those that always encouraged me.
I am not sure how other poets do this. I have read poetry this month too, that I really liked. Some which made me think that I need to do better. I also know that not everyone agrees that poetry should be manufactured in such a way and to that point I will say this… I clearly have a lot of pent up energy and poetry within me. It took me 35 years to tap into something that I should have done when I was in college. I continue to have a story to tell and I will continue to do that.
What I find even funnier is that when I was doubting myself and my ability, I thought to myself that once I get to my last poem, I will take a break and not deal with poetry for awhile. However, the way I feel right now, I think I can write another 30 poems. I have ideas and imagery that continue to form in my head. I had to narrow down what tomorrow’s poem is actually going to be. So I have tons of poems left that I cannot wait to share with the world.
Anthony Otero 