When I decided to actually sit here to define my view of poetry and where I'd like mine to go, I had to stop for a minute. The last thing I want is to sound pompous and arrogant. While a little bit of ego is a healthy thing, too much of it is toxic. It is toxic to the reader of your poetry, to your peers and to the overall quality of what you turn out. I won't sit here and justify my poetry to the masses. Anyone can be a poet. Anyone can sit and churn out page after page after page of poems. It doesn't make it GOOD poetry. I've been writing since I was 9. Between the ages of 9-22, I wrote in the neighborhood of 90% short stories and 10% poetry. All of it was pretty vile. The stories were derivative. The poems were nauseating. Still, I WAS WRITING. The only way to get better is to continue...even if it's shite. I've held onto a few of those old stories and a few handfuls of those fucking awful poems to remind myself how far I've come and how limited my scope of topics and emotions were. As I actually became interested in something other than the television, I found that there were many good writers out there.

There is usually a poem or poet during High School that one can pinpoint as the catalyst for their writing. Mine is one of the obvious ones: "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe. To this day, I still enjoy Poe's writings, but I also realize that he's a dead poet. I like a few dead poets like Sexton and Plath, but I also enjoy Sharon Olds. I like the modernized, sometimes claustrophobic version of poetry that Nicole Blackman writes. There are some poets out now writing very brave, very cutting edge poetry, like Kristy Bowen and Kristina Marie Darling. I don't know exactly where my poems exist among the glut of old and new poetry. However, I do know what inspires me to write. (Well, other than the endless ideas, thoughts and observations of the every day life.) Take, for example, these lines:

a funny conclusion
this goodbye
no cup of coffee
or tight hug next to the car
just a feeling of emptiness
that pervades
a home
"A Sound Inside" - Bridgette Holmes

Now I can't explain what it is about these lines that affected me, but they did. The poem itself was one of my favorites that we took for Chantarelle's Notebook's fourth issue. It's a modern take on disappointment and despair. There are those occasions when a submission strikes me so much that the words linger each time I read them. That...is the sign of good poetry. I wish to one day be able to induce a reaction like that out of one of my readers. I want people to be able to read my poems and get that heavy feeling that I get when I read a poem that parallels my life. Awards and accolades would be nice, but I don't think that they're necessary to keep me going. Naturally, I wouldn't be like Eddie Vedder and say, "What does this mean? I don't think it means anything at all." I'd happily and humbly accept a prize for my poetry. I'd be flattered if anyone cared about what I write about. One of the most important things that any artist must have is humility. Mostly, I want to grow as a writer without losing the humanity. I want the poems to be good, but edgy and powerful. I want to leave behind a body of work that will one day mean something. I truly believe in the saying, "The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose." I may not be doing that right now, but I aspire to. My poems will hopefully be my legacy. One can only hope.