5 minute read
Selfie with Sarah: Passion Poetry, and the Value of Introspection
by Regie Vocales
Several wonders of the world can bring forth inspirations to a person—from external influences like nature, relationships, or living spaces to everyday details like food, people, art, and travel, to name a few. But some prefer not to stray away from individuality, manifesting themselves through self-portraits, autobiographies, and even exploring the human psyche like memories and emotions and unlocking their passion and potential.
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Even your own self can be an inspiration. Consequentially, the art reflects the artist. But somehow, others find it difficult to portray themselves because some see it as vanity, while others have yet to come to terms with their true self, how they think, and what they look like.
Living in this fast-paced world, self-awareness was once oftentimes overlooked. But this shifted when introspection and self-discovery were amplified during the pandemic when everywhere is on lockdown and everyone is forced to stay indoors. People are discovering things they have not tried, and things they have always wanted to do but had no time before.
For someone who has tread the road of introspection and self-discovery pre-pandemic, teacher and poet Sarah Muñoz shares with NRM how she discovered herself and her passion.
“When I was a little girl, I was captivated by the rhythm and rhyme of children’s stories and nursery rhymes read to me by my mother with such great enthusiasm,” Sarah says.
She began playing with words and creating her own puns at just three years old.
In her early years, Sarah already acknowledged the power of words. She read product labels and how words were used as tools for marketing. In ninth grade, she took inspiration from Shakespeare and began writing poetry.
Born and raised in Roanoke, Virginia, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, Sarah took a creative writing degree at Roanoke College and became an active poet. But everything really clicked when she saw her professor’s works.
“I remember seeing my professor’s published works and being awestruck. I knew that I was meant to be a writer, too.”
Enthusiasm and passion are the main drives of Sarah to continue writing despite her work’s demand for her time and building a family with her high-school sweetheart.
Sarah says.
With the pandemic setting up limitations everywhere, Sarah took it as an opportunity and sparked her passion for writing again.
“It was the retreat I needed. It caused me to slow down and gave me the physical and mental space to reconnect with a version of myself that got buried under the pressures of work and motherhood.”
This also taught her the importance of making time to write. Some moments have not been favorable, too. Sarah opens up about the time she had to have her creative energy rerouted to survival mode.
“I had to finish my master’s degree and get my teaching licensure as (quickly) as possible while already teaching full-time. And just when I finally established myself in the teaching world and things seemed to get less hectic, my husband and I decided to start a family of our own...”
But even with adversities, Sarah regained her footing and found her balance once again.
As a poet, Sarah sees poetry as a cathartic power for both the poet and the reader, and she is one of those writers who draw inspiration from within themselves. “I like to write topics that are personal to me, but relatable at the same time. The poem Waiting for the Ball to Drop is one of the most personal poems I’ve written. It is a subject that has been repressed in my subconscious for years and that needed to be released through writing.” On the topic of introspection, she reveals she often draws on memories from the past and the observations from the present, which are often linked to her imagining future scenarios.
“I reflect on myself a lot… I feel like the past, present, and future are threaded together and you can go any direction you want through introspective writing.”
Reflection and self-evaluation are important because they “give writers an opportunity to understand their own psychology and their own human nature,” says Sarah. For her, poetry helps one dissect emotions on a particular life event or experience, looking at the pieces that form the whole. “Poetry enables one to ponder reality. Oftentimes, we learn a lot about ourselves and how we feel about different subjects by what ends up on the page.”
Additionally, Sarah says self-reflection comes naturally to her when writing poetry, and that she admires modern-day and classical authors whose works can be described as selfreflective. “For instance, I’m currently reading Goldenrod by Maggie Smith, and I always circle back to the works of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. So, for now, I can definitely say that self-reflection is what attracts me both as a writer and a reader.”
Human experiences and psychology are other themes Sarah wants to explore other than introspection. She had discovered prompts from the Instagram poetry community to be most helpful in the creative process, crediting them for catapulting her back to the creative mindset and her posting on her IG account @ponderpoet.sarah.
Read on Sarah’s poems imprinted on this issue, Spilled Milk, Waiting for the Ball to Drop, and Passing Through, and experience for yourself the psychological processes of introspection, journeying through times in the past, present, and future, and confronting one’s existence.
