Welcome back, I am so happy you are here.

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Table of Contents

1. Brittle Music | Poetry

2. A Kinder World | Poetry

3. Gardens | Poetry

4. If You Were a Color - Unpacked | Poetry

5. Bi-Weekly Recommendations | Closing Thoughts

Background

I’ve spoken briefly about my relationship with poetry. That it is, perhaps, the writing medium that I am the most uncomfortable sharing. Whether it is due to the small amount that I’ve made public, or the deeply intimate nature of the practice itself, I’m not quite sure, but it’s something I’ve strangely found myself gravitating towards lately, more than anything else.

To be totally honest, I believe it’s been somewhat of a trauma response. To the news cycle, the state of the country, and the ever growing influx of volatile information social media forces on its users. If I had to hazard a guess, my mind is incapable of processing the sheer amount of emotion and complexity layered in every headline, but art, especially poetry, is the best way I know how to distill complicated and competing thoughts into statements (mostly) backed by meaning. If I can condense them, they become easier to step away from, and simpler to understand.

My history with poetry is slim. I wrote a number of songs throughout high school and college, and took one poetry class for my major, but beyond a strong affinity for Shakespeare, Bishop, and Poe, I never felt like I had the skill to concentrate feeling into such sharp sentiment. I’ve always admired poets for the ability to do so much with so little, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve connected more and more with the art. Whether it is due to the increase in personal experience, the search for meaning, or simply the need to know that someone else has felt before what I’m feeling now, and against all odds, I’m not crazy.

At the end of 2024, I felt a deep need to convey my thoughts differently than I had been. Nothing felt like it held the necessary weight of what I was feeling…and poetry is what answered. I hadn’t written a poem since a class assignment in 2016. So here we are a year and a half later, and although I still find poetry to be one of the hardest writing mediums to polish and improve upon, I’m excited to be sharing more with you.

Today, I would like to walk you all through a few of the different poems, and discuss not only the reason for writing them, but also a few of the decisions I made around structure, format, and language, while keeping the themes open-ended. I hope that you enjoy, and would love to hear what you think.

“Brittle Music” is a poem I just wrote yesterday. Much of it is born out of anger. At institutions, at politics, at repression, at power. Anger is an emotion I struggle to express healthily, and rather than being frustrated with myself for feeling angry in the first place, I knew I needed to express it in a more proactive way.

You may notice there is no punctuation, and that is an intentional choice. I think there is an emptiness to who and what I address in the poem, and wanted to express that in how it was written.

Brittle Music

~

Power is a language

That needs not a voice

Spoken by those who see a world with edges

They were never meant to touch

A resource gathered

By intemperate hands

Given to walls

That echo only of you

And others who seek it

Are simply there to control

Buried beneath the memories of

Virtue once traded

For those who practice posture in shadow

And address empty rooms

Convince themselves

Which parts are worth keeping

That height demands

A certain cruelty

And a foundation is for those

Never intended to rise

But as the trees thin

Beneath your feet

It just becomes distance

Only proof of ascent

Until the absence of sound

Feels not of peace

And more like suspension

Mistaken for strength

For the constitutions of weak men

Snap like twigs beneath the feet

Of fear

And feigned power

And in that brittle music

You can hear the forest confess

How easily

It forgets its roots

~

“A Kinder World” is actually what kickstarted my pursuit of poetry a year and a half ago. I wrote this on November 7th, 2024, the day after the presidential election in the United States. For me, it was a way to explore my own grief. What I felt had been lost in the country, an uncertainty of what was to come, and my hope for those around me. It is short, concise, and echos a lot of the same sentiment of “Brittle Music”. Complete sentences felt like they carried more grace, and allowed my words to sit less in anger, but firmly between frustrated and steadfast.

A Kinder World

~

As history continues to be dictated by small men, angry, isolated, or too scared to rock the boat, I hope for a kinder world.

One where hate is not confused with passion, fear is not disguised as virtue, and division is not considered progress.

One where safety and love are not reserved for individuals based on who they are, where they come from, or how they look.

One where bodies aren't something to be controlled, equality is an expectation, and the needs of "me" are synonymous with the needs of "we".

Power born out of greed will always work to control those that support it, and in a world that celebrates who's speaking the loudest, I refuse to believe volume is equivalent to strength.

Grief does not have to be the only reason we remember love exists, but it is a gentle reminder that there is always more to fight for.

~

“Gardens” was also written yesterday, in the wake of “Brittle Music”. After expressing my anger, I felt like I needed to come back to a place of rest. I had a few random lines written down from the past couple months, and I slowly, haphazardly worked them together. One of the hardest parts about this poem was trying to decide where to end it. The topic itself felt quite open, and I kept trying to make it longer when I don’t think it wanted to be. Anything I wrote beyond what you see below just didn’t seem to fit, or so this is one of those instances where the poem knew when it wanted to finish.

I chose to align piece on the right side due to the nature of what it discusses, moving forward. I also moved back into a rhyme scheme, which is where I feel the most comfortable given my history of song writing.

Gardens

~

Quiet moments bloom,

In spaces left between days,

Where nothing asks to be defined,

And time forgets its measured ways.

A longing glance, or softened word,

Warmth that lingers just a while.

These fleeting things we leave behind,

Take root beyond our mile.

We are the sum of unseen threads,

Echos cast we cannot trace.

Of light that travels through the dark,

To find, at last, another place.

If life has taught me anything,

To love is just to be.

And we’re all planting seeds in gardens,

We’ll never get to see.

The wind will carry what we’ve sown,

To soil not stood upon.

And strangers who speak not our names,

Will feel the shade when we are gone.

But in the hush of distant years,

When memory turns to air.

A trace of us will still remain,

In kindness unaware.

So let us move with gentle hands,

Unburdened by acclaim,

For beauty lives in quiet acts,

And never speaks our name.

~

Although I included it in the last newsletter, I wanted to briefly discuss “If You Were a Color”. This is a piece that I wrote for my beautiful partner, Daria, and like many of my poems I wanted it to follow a distinct path. For me, love is something that moves from the the physical, to the metaphorical, to the metaphysical as it progresses. I attempted to mirror that in this poem, and blend one stage into the next. It’s a very personal piece, and all of the things included feel fiercely representative of Daria and our relationship.

Originally I wrote this in 4 line stanzas, and it didn’t feel right. Every thought seemed a little rushed, which is the complete opposite of how I feel about a deep and loving relationship. I moved to 8 line stanzas, lengthening the time you spend on each section, and it immediately felt more drawn out and fluid. Every line suddenly felt like its own complete thought within a larger statement, and it made the final 4 line stanza more conclusive.

I hope that if you saw this one a couple weeks ago, you can read it again now and discover something totally new.

If You Were a Color

~

If you were a color,

I would learn how to paint,

Spend a life crafting work,

That makes grown men feel faint,

Not from grandeur alone,

But the ache in each hue,

Every stroke whispering softly,

Of the essence in you.

I would study the language,

Of light on a wall,

How shadows confess,

What others can’t call,

You’d be patience and longing,

Silence running deep,

Dreams to be captured,

And feelings hard to keep.

If you were a color,

I would set myself free,

I’d find you in waves and the sky,

and in rivers by trees,

I’d walk every corner, 

of the earth, be it wide,

Until the air tastes like rain,

And I’d see you arrive.

You would be the horizon,

Just after the sun,

When the world holds it’s breath,

With a day that’s not done,

I would find you in forests,

That have yet to be named,

Where the wild things roam

And nothing is tamed.

If you were a color, 

It would make me feel safe

Like a light in the dark, 

Or solace in grace,

You would be a reminder,

Of heaven and earth,

The beauty that sits,

Between endings and birth.

Like a late afternoon,

Slipping slowly away,

Spilling warmth and perspective,

Through the cracks of each day,

You’d be endless and vast,

You would never stay still,

You’d shift like a secret,

And bend time to your will.

A color that sits,

Between what’s seen and believed,

A shade both discovered,

And never retrieved.

~

Bi-Weekly Recommendations

• If you enjoy storytelling, nature, and original ideas, I want to recommend the YouTube channel of one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, Beau Miles. I promise if you go and click on any of his popular videos, you will want to watch them all. He is a massive inspiration for me, and he thinks and speaks in a way more of us should. You can find his page here!:

  https://www.youtube.com/@BeauMiles

• A few songs in the current rotation:

  • “Sanctuary” by Joji

  • “Vines” by Hippo Campus

  • “Surround Me” by LÉON

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