On My Shift Towards Poetry

Written by Dani G. Lindmier

Since I have been an avid writer for the past decade of my life (which led me into adulthood), it is only natural that my writing tastes would fluctuate or transform as my own identity has. Of course, I wouldn't say that I ever fall "in" or "out" of love with any form of writing; I simply know that, as I grow as a writer, I find myself becoming more involved with certain forms. One of the most notable shifts for me has been the shift towards poetry, which has been just as perplexing and transformative for me as college itself.

As a wide-eyed seven-year-old, I found myself falling in love with an idea− with a world− for the first time. This world was Lewis’ Narnia. I remember that, back then, my mother read my brother and I a chapter of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe every night, and somewhere during this time I told myself I wanted to make worlds just like C.S. Lewis did. With that, my love of fantasy fiction became the stepping-stone for my love of writing. Years later, I found myself swept up in the dystopian fiction craze, and I started writing my own dystopian fiction pieces as early as sixth grade. From this time forward, I have always felt a sense of power from being able to develop a world based around a real problem in order to expose it, and it is for this reason that it remained my literary passion throughout high school. Of course, I have recounted that the majority of my writing has been focused on prose for the majority of my life, and it has. (I didn’t even start writing poetry until eighth grade, and even then it was a hummingbird poem for a class project.)

Why is it, then, that I found myself slowly slipping into the world of poetry after being engrossed in the world of prose for so long? I partially attribute this change to my need to explore my sexuality as college began. Since I was raised in a religious environment where I was never really allowed to question what it meant to be “bi” or “genderqueer” or “myself,” I was much more interested in focusing on the problems I saw in the world back then. I had an almost invisible place in my own writing (which was perfectly fine for me back then and for many people). Once I left for college, though, I found myself confused and at odds with the person I was, and I started to use the expressiveness of poetry in order to get in touch with myself. After writing poetry such as “Parrotfish” or “Too Gay to be Good,” I found myself becoming more comfortable with who I was. I was suddenly starting to feel okay with saying I liked girls and that I didn’t have preferred pronouns, topics that I once shied away from. I started to use poetry in order to convey various aspects of who I am (or who I was when I wrote the poem), and it has allowed me to present my own voice for the first time. For now, that is what I am most interested in: my own voice, my own observations. It is my own version of learning how to grow, and it will always be a part of my story of transformation.

Perhaps on a more eccentric note, I have found myself more and more interested in writing on my typewriter, whom I have fondly named Elaine. I find it much easier to write out first drafts of poems than short stories. Poems are just loose and powerful like that; they work themselves out as you punch the keys, whereas short stories must be planned, carefully penned or typed. The truth of the matter is sometimes I just want to close my door, listen to the clicking keys, and let myself feel whatever the sound causes me to feel. Sometimes I just want to grow without planning. I want to transform without stopping to take notes or to think, and poetry allows me to process experiences and thoughts in a way I have yet to do with prose. Of course, I still love prose and world-building, and perhaps I will find exactly what I need in it again as I continue to transform. Until then, though, poetry holds the key to the person I am. It and I are inseparable, and I would have it no other way.