a common piece of writing advice goes as follows:
“write what you know.”
i remember hearing this a lot when i was a student, and the directive seemed straightforward to me. why wouldn’t i write about what i know? any time i haven’t, it doesn’t make much sense, or feel true.
it’s a lot like when you’re watching one of those intense cooking shows, and you can’t help but gravitate toward the chef that cooks his mother’s Bolognese and concedes that it still won’t ever taste as good as hers. (see: Netflix, the pressure cooker) you root for him, rather than the chef that flaunts their flavor profiles and just cooks whatever showcases their technical skills the best. you’re a sucker for the heart that presents itself in the food.
something about feeling disconnected to whatever kind of work i’ve put out into the world, writing or otherwise, feels disingenuous. it doesn’t feel like me. for example, i almost never capitalize or punctuate anything, and writing to fit a poetic form always left me crumpling up my drafts. so i don’t do any of that, despite how valued those techniques might be in the writing world or academia.
what i think is more challenging about writing what you know is the act of it. to write what you know means you have to be honest with yourself about what you understand (or don’t.) for me, it means accepting that my poems are almost always about an emotional problem or piece of trauma i’m currently chewing on.
if you’ve been here for awhile, you know that nothing i write is necessarily optimistic or uplifting. while i adore my partner and can’t wait to marry him, i rarely write about our relationship (because thankfully, it’s healthy) or all of the various sources of joy that exist in my life. i think that’s because i use my poetry to move through things. and that can get complicated when i share my work publicly, and a loved one finds it ‘concerning’ or awkwardly realizes it is about them.
while i know this comes with the territory of writing what you know, it doesn’t always feel easy. and listen, i learned about the death of the author too. but this author is very much alive and attached to her art. so yes, the scenario in my poem is real or based in reality, and yes, it’s about something that happened to me or someone i know. i am my work and my work is me. we get inevitably separated when people read my words and have their own interpretations, but i’m still there. still buried underneath of it all.
so it can be tough to make yourself vulnerable through what you create. it is a risk, sharing, submitting, and facing reactions from readers. but i’m okay if my ex from three years ago stumbles across one of my pieces. if my mother wants to know why i wrote about that embarrassing situation, or parts of our fraught relationship. i’m open about these stories.
while it might seem trite or boring, we should all write what we know. we know so much more than we think.
xo,
strega
p.s, i posted about my rebrand on instagram, but you’ll notice i’ve switched from bloodstone poetry to stinging sentences. just felt more like me. :)
p.p.s, here’s a poem from something i’m working on:
all the caricatures i loved before.
the boys were projects
cutouts of desires glued together
pinned to a corkboard on my peeling yellow
walls. they were not people, but vessels
i would hollow them out until they could be
filled again, with bow tied happy endings
and proclamations outside windows at 3am
it was all to feel like number one,
the girl who ensnares best
chemically altering what love looks like
for the rest of their days
calculated? no, more like desperate strategy,
in efforts to never be the one
holding the shortest stick
left alone on a friday night
or the most unloved.