Poetry Helps Turn O My Editor Brain and Figure Out the World

from Monroe East- Genesee Valley Penny Saver- 4-28-23

SENIOR NEWS

BY JULIE BLUE

I’ve been writing since I was very young. I used to ll pages with meaningless loops and squiggles before I actually knew how to read or write. In the second grade, I wrote a story about a haunted house and read it aloud for the class. A er that, I was hooked. My mom might still have that rst story somewhere.

My love of poetry didn’t come until college. I remember sitting in a little café at SUNY Brockport and writing my rst poems for one of my English classes. I think I tried to use a certain rhyme scheme and they sounded like greeting cards (read: they were awful). When I was introduced to free verse poetry, I fell in love. I found a way to express myself the way I wanted to with no rules I had to follow. On a whim, I submitted a poem to Jigsaw, the literary publication of SUNY Brockport, and won rst place. A er that, I was in love with poetry and excited about it.

In 2002, I tagged along with a friend to a Valentine’s Day open mic at e Hungerford Gallery in Rochester. at was my rst experience reading my poetry for other people. It was scary and wonderful at the same time. I started attending Pure Kona open mic regularly. It’s either the oldest or one of the oldest continuously running open mic nights in Rochester. Norm Davis started it in 1993, and it’s taken place in lots of places over the years. When I started going, it was at Daily Perks on Gregory Street; today it’s found a home at Equal Grounds on South Ave (Wednesday nights at 7pm). Poetry is a powerful tool for me. It was my therapy before I had an actual therapist. It lets me get those troubling or torturous or confusing thoughts out of my head and onto the page. Poetry lets me share my human experience with the world. It helps me gure things out. Sometimes it helps me simply express love, passion, or humor in more intimate ways. Where words o en get stuck on my tongue, I nd they ow out freely on a blank page or screen.

I frequently get “writer’s block” when writing ction, but that’s rarely the case when journaling or writing poetry. I’m also an editor, so I’m always looking for new ways to turn o my editor brain and just get the words out. Poetry is a great way to do that.

In 2011, I started a ction and poetry blog on WordPress called By Julie Blue. I still post poetry there when the mood strikes. Sometimes I go months without writing at all. I tend to write poetry about whatever is on my mind, or stuck in there, whatever that may be (love, my children, relationships, politics, death, nature, fear, alcoholism, complex emotions, joy).

Over the years, since that rst publication in Jigsaw, I’ve been published in a number of poetry anthologies. One day I hope to publish or self-publish my own collection or chapbook - if I can ever stop editing myself and call it “done.” For now, some of my poetry lives online and even more of it sleeps in my collection of pretty notebooks, paper scraps, and old envelopes I grab when nothing else is around. I nd my favorite time to write is in the early morning when the rest of my household is still asleep and the world outside is just waking up.

I nd that writing also helps me learn more about myself, my past, and what I want out of life. It’s a form of meditation. Julie Blue lives in Canandaigua, NY with her two children, Piper and Jack. She blogs at byjulieblue.com.

Heart Mechanics

By Julie Blue

Heart Mechanics

We are born enough. Endless love, light Possibility

Pumping through veins e trick is

Synapses ring on high Flesh our so , warm armor Keeping it all in place.

We are born enough.

Unlearning anything at tells us

Otherwise.

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