Poetry

Poetry was my first love. And the last love to not break my heart.

No matter what is happening in my life, no matter the trauma or joy, poetry is there every time I am in need.

Thinking back on an old lover with fond memories and an aching heart, Millay stands waiting with,

“After all my erstwhile dear,

My no longer cherished;

Need we say it was not love,

Just because it perished?”

And I nod in agreement, knowing she is right.

And when Nerdua wrote “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees,” I developed a deeper understanding of both sex and love.

Dorothy Parker will have some pithy thing to say about “speeding bullets through the brains of the folks that cause me pains” to make light of my anger and Bukowski joins in when I need some good old, drunken self loathing.

I didn’t have a lot of friends when I was younger. Perhaps if my mother hadn’t teared up when I gave her my first poem for Mother’s Day, the fascination and obsession that grew from our second grade poetry unit, would have faded.  Instead, it became a friend in hard times and a lover on lonely nights and a part of who I am.

It became the way I knew to communicate with the world.

Unfortunately, I was decades too late. Poetry is no longer the beloved art form it once was. Edna St. Vincent Millay obtained near rock star status in her day. She sold out venues for readings and would be stopped in the street for autographs. But me? I just chill on my couch on rainy nights and write of loves lost and destiny found.

Brooke Farmer is a writer, a poet and a blogger rocking the starving artist lifestyle in Silverlake, CA. Mostly she just plays with words, drinks coffee and tries to figure out her next step.