Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem.

Full Disclosure: This was a college application essay I wrote for an honors program.

“If you’re nice to a friend, the friendship will never end.” I put down my pencil and smiled at my work. I expressed the joy of having a friend in the best way I could at my first attempt at poetry and could not be more pleased with the result. It was then that I fell in love with poetry and how much truth it could reveal in just a few lines. After I confidently handed the sheet of looseleaf to my first-grade teacher, I immediately got to writing another one.

My relationship with writing now is complicated. I tend to write only when I experience a burst of inspiration. When that inspiration runs out, however, a page is left blank, a line is left unwritten, and a thought is left unformulated. Thinking about this missed opportunity to create something worthy of pride is always frustrating and unfortunately results in a complete loss of motivation for me to write anything at all. To get over this period of writer’s block, I repeat to myself a metaphor the distinguished American poet, Walt Whitman, once stated in a quote on leading a fulfilling life: “...your flesh shall be a great poem.”

This seven-word metaphor, though short, holds a lot of meaning. It enables me to look for inspiration within myself. Regardless of what I write about, a part of me is left embedded in my poems. My first-grade self is forever embodied in the short, simple rhyming poems I wrote to express my truth, and the person I am today is encapsulated in the poetry I write therapeutically to help me make sense of my identity and experience in this increasingly stressful and confusing world. The metaphors, similes, imagery, rhymes, rhythm, and words of my poems have always been attuned to my thoughts, feelings, and values. My writing style simply evolved as I continued to grow. 

    This metaphor is also incredibly powerful to me as it reminds me why I love poetry in the first place. I noticed the poems that have been recognized and appreciated by others are the only ones that make me proud. On the other hand, I look at the poems I never finished, shared, or wrote a long time ago with disdain. Too often I feel pressure to write a masterpiece on the first try and forget that writing, especially poetry, is something personal and like me, not meant to be perfect. Not everything I write has to be shared with others, but can instead be simply cherished by me.

    When I repeat this metaphor, it allows me to separate the validation of others from the real reasons why I write poetry. It can be so easy to lose oneself in the praise one may receive and to allow that praise to become the main driving force for future works. I write poetry for myself, just as I always have once I finished my first poem in first grade. The first poem may have been for my teacher, but the countless ones that followed have been for me. When I finally repeat this metaphor enough times to start writing again, I pick up my pencil and spill all the words in my head onto the page. It may be spectacular, substandard, impressive, or illogical, but that does not stop me. My flesh and soul are laid bare on the stanzas, raw and vulnerable-- and that is what makes a poem great, no matter what anyone says.