Throughout the past few weeks of collecting poetry, I have come to realize that a major reason why people are reluctant to enter their poetry is because they are generally shy and uncomfortable with their own writing capabilities. Many of the people that I have talked to have told me upfront that they do not want to submit their poetry, yet, when I talked to some of them in person about their poetry and what I believe poetry is, the reluctance faded and I would suddenly be facing a proud, confident poet. I had the privilege of being able to read a poem by a high school freshman at Summit Rainier, and that poem touched my heart. When this student submitted her poetry, she wrote a powerful message about her poem that showed me a level of poetry that I had not yet experienced.
“This piece is actually about my experiences with eating disorders. As the poem starts, I developed my eating disorder when I was twelve years old. I had always had a bigger build than I would have liked leading up to seventh grade when I broke. I developed anorexia because of how much I hated myself. I used to skip meals and exercise excessively as the poem states. I never told my parents about it and I don’t think they know to this day. My battle with anorexia didn’t last long though. The eating disorder that was the main culprit to making me sick was bulimia. I used to binge and purge I couldn’t stand just starving myself. I wanted to eat, but I didn’t want to gain weight. .I was lucky enough that my battle ended a little after one year with the help of extremely close friends. I had a hard time recovering throughout eighth grade and sometimes I feel like I’m still recovering. I just wanted to make this poem to let people with eating disorders know that they’re not alone and that everything is going to be alright.”
I was so shocked at the pain and emotion that this person had written with that I just had to send a personal email expressing my awe at her writing abilities. From her powerful message featured in her poem, I found a new meaning to the power of poetry. Poetry is something that can cover any topic, be about any person- It can be nonfiction and fiction. Poetry can be in multiple languages and express the same idea in so many different ways. The power of poetry to me, is a means to destress and find a deeper meaning about the things that I write about, and to this student, poetry is a means for her to reflect upon herself and remember the painful lessons that she had to learn by herself- The time in which she learned these lessons, I have read and understood in mere minutes. To me, this is the power of poetry.
