Reader, I tell you this: write about what makes you uncomfortable. For me, September has always been an uncomfortable month; it has come to symbolize a time of change. Whether you are returning to school as a student, teacher, or head back to the office from vacation, it is time again to begin. Beginnings and endings tend to stabilize our lives, from job changes to the blossoming of relationships, which is reflected in our writing. Of course, poetry is far different from fiction and non-fiction, in that time is not necessarily relevant; a story is not always being told. That being said, a poem needs to exist in some kind of reality—if a poem lives only in an abstracted limbo, the reader is literally left in a labyrinth. Without an audience, what good is poetry? What good would any writing be?

Why write what makes you uncomfortable? The more you know yourself as a person, the more you will be able to tap into the crevices known as the ‘self.’ Some may disagree— writing does not always have to come from the self, which is quite true. However, if you do not know what makes you tick, what makes you cringe, what makes you rage, then how can you be expected to write anything of meaning? It has to come from somewhere, after all.

Always,
Joanna C. Valente