I did not consider myself a poet. I only began submitting poetry to journals as a way to build my writing resume. My goal was to write novels.

I applied as the poet laureate of Oshkosh and I still did not call myself a poet. But the position showed me that I was. That if you write, you should call yourself a writer. If you write poems, you are a poet. Embrace the title. Because it fits you. I didn’t even though I had over twenty poems published in journals.

But I was a poet even before getting them published. I began to write poetry the way many do. After heart breaks. A way to express what I was feeling. I didn’t know it at the time, but I wanted to make my pain into something worthwhile. Art.

It is also what I do with prose. I want to mention my novels because on our podcast we are going to focus on the healing that takes place in poetry. But writing heals regardless of genre. Shattered is the story of a stand-up comic that believes he can rid himself of his emotions. That was me after my first breakup. I wrote No More Ugly Girls because I wanted to honor the struggle many women have of carrying the burden of trauma and the shame that keeps them from dealing with it. I just saw this in so many women. What I didn’t know at the time was that I was also writing about myself. I am blessed to be able to say I have not experienced trauma. And yet, like my main character, I find myself clinging to the pain I know out of fear. Remaining in behavioral and thinking cycles that I know I should break free from.

For the first time in decades I do not have a novek that I am working on. And part of that is because I am drawn to my poetry. I want to write it, share it, teach it.

I am a poet.

And lately when I write, I find myself drawn to poetry. I am pulled to poetry events and I am excited to begin this podcast journey about poetry with G.