I’m writing poetry again.
Until recently, I hadn’t written poetry since my late teens. Twenty years has passed me by and my love of reading and writing poetry seemed to dwindle into a distant memory. It was only after writing the poem for my Christmas newsletter that I started again.
I’m very much a night owl. My brain doesn’t fully engage in a morning – that’s always been the case for me – and so I can be in bed, totally exhausted yet my brain is fully awake. It’s one of the reasons I have so much trouble sleeping. Reading helps a lot. No matter where I am or what I’ve been doing, when I climb into bed, I read. It doesn’t fully eliminate my insomnia, but it does relax me. And now I’ve added poetry to the mix. My brain sparks with ideas, usually unrelated to anything around me, but ideas which would usually leave me staring at a dark ceiling, are now being jotted down into my phone.
As someone who loves to write songs, rhyming had always been apart of my poetry, but this new wave isn’t my usual 2/4 rhyme. It is raw, fluid and impactful. There is still a rhythm to my words, but rhyme has taken a backseat.
I have no idea if they’re any good or if I’ll do anything with them (there are only four so far), but I am liking using my night-time thoughts for something more useful than shadow spotting on my bedroom ceiling.