Writing Poetry ...

and reading it, too

My sixth collection of poetry will be out later this year from Launch Point Press. My contract with them is for 8-11 collections. Perhaps they thought I wouldn't live long enough to produce more than eight collections, certainly not more than eleven. I plan to outwit them.

This sixth collection is about migraine headaches and their remedies. It came about because I was having migraines every other day (this lasted for three years), and trying every remedy to eliminate or reduce them. I could take my prescribed ills only ten days a month. This meant I would have to go as long as three weeks with no medicine.

I tried everything. Every over the counter pill, everything anyone suggested including long walks (imagine doing with in the sun with a pounding headache), giving myself ice cream headaches (this worked a couple of times), and ingesting so many herbs, botanicals, and more that it was ridiculous. Someone suggested drawing the headache as I was having it. I did. But it was always the same drawing, with slight variations.

At last, I hit upon the idea of writing about the headache as I was having it. After all, I had much more experience with writing than I did with drawing.

Thus began my collection of migraine poems, ranging from haiku to senryu to free verse. Much of it was not worth printing, but enough of them made the cut for a poetry collection. Watch for it later this year.

Do you read about other's pain? Do you write about your own?

Frida Kahlo famously painted her pain for the world to see. Some of the most beautiful are of her suffering, as in The Broken Column and Henry Ford Hospital.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

My dad wrote poetry, small rhyming poems about his love for his wife mostly. My mom periodically wrote poetry all her life, often to celebrate a birthday or anniversary of a family member.

My first published poem was about abortion. I was fourteen. My next publications were in my twenties. Then I gave up poetry for forty years as I focused on playwriting and wrote my first novel. In 2010, while on a writing retreat, I discovered Sage Cohen's Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read & Write Poetry. I accepted that invitation and begin to write poetry again. As for reading poetry, I do that every day.

My favorite poets are Mary Oliver, Emily Dickinson, and Andrea Gibson. I invite you to read their work, it can be life-changing.

Do you have favorite poets? Do you write poetry yourself?

I invite you to share in comments any of your favorite works, including your own.

Here is a poem from my forthcoming book:

Migraine Againe

Twice in one week after three

weeks without a single one.

Sometimes they fall this way.

Other times they like to huddle

around each other like kittens

suckling their mama, my brain

one giant belly of teats.

Today’s headache sent a scout,

a foot soldier with a bayonet

to repeatedly stab my liver first

to make sure I awakened

and arose from my warm bed,

breakfasted, and planned my day

before throwing everything at my head.

Surprise attack! Yes! We got her,

gentlemen, we are taking her

down. Molten rivers sluice across my head

as I fall back against my chair,

my eyes unable to open against

even this gray afternoon

now that my forehead is in the

grip of your tiny warriors

pulling at every tendon.

I reach for my pills, unable to

find them by sound, less able

to read the labels than I could have

if only I had

surrendered when I heard

the first bugle cry instead

of bravely struggling to my

writing desk to die while

booting up.

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