Letter 88 - What Will You Do With Yours?

Feb 02, 2025

Hello Bregdan Woman,

You have Suess today…

I stumbled upon this quote: Unexpressed creativity, unexpressed and unreleased metastases into anger, shame, grief, judgement, madness. (My research believes that credit is due Brene Brown in her book: The Gifts of Imperfection)

Read it again.

Unexpressed creativity: unexpressed and unreleased metastases into anger, shame, grief, judgement, madness

PAUSE. Think about your creative-ness.

Unexpressed creativity, unexpressed and unreleased, metastases into anger, shame, grief, judgement, madness

I’ve written poetry (or prose or blank verse poetry or free verse prose) …what the words that I write are “labeled” depends upon the source of “them”. You know, they “called” it prose, not poetry. “They said it was prose because Prose is not poetry. They said it was blank verse. No, it’s Free Verse. Which definition upon which I gather the definition of my writing varies. Yet, the goal of poetry of ANY “sort” is to be a literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas.

Point: I’ve written thoughts, images, ideas, fears and hopes since I was ten years old, sitting in the shade of a mulberry tree limb on North Pioneer Street in dry, dusty West Texas. I wrote laying down, staining my tee shirt, beside the red dirt creek bed which after a rare rainstorm ran streaming behind our home. I wrote in the barn sweaty, smelling of aromatic horse, perching atop a hay bale while Peaches, my Palomino mare, stood witness.

In time, I decide that no one truly enjoyed poetry- ya know, it’s reserved the smallest shelf space in any bookstore, is excluded from North America Book Markets’ Top Ten list of ‘most popular’ genres and will clear a room of listeners rather quickly. The definitions of poetry, prose, blank verse, free verse create glossy eyes.

I stopped writing. And slipped into: “anger, shame, grief, judgement, madness”

I stopped writing and only lived –

I stopped writing and never thrived.

As life and I grew on each other, I again began writing. I craved the solitude and calm of writing. Life leaned messy, chaotic and dark. I wrote. Life blossomed and revealed wonders, miracles and delightful surprises. I wrote.

I began writing. I thrived.

In time, once again, I decided no one wanted to read what I wrote: i am not one for punctuation, accurate rhythm, meter or spacing. My words: cloaked, shrouded, wrapped in imagery evoke emotion. Emotion people prefer to avoid. Emotions I preferred to avoid. I gave no voice. I stopped writing. I withered into anger, shame, grief, judgement, madness

I write. I thrive.

I stop. I wither.

I began writing.

I stopped writing. I withered.

I began writing again. I thrived.

I stopped again. I withered.

Dancing this PoetryFreeVerseBlankVerseProse dance now for 51 years (at this Jan. 2025 writing) --- ever since that 10-year-old horse crazy, outdoor loving Texas girl hid behind fluttering green leaves watching the neighborhood from afar, I am experienced in quitting and beginning.

My point, my Bregdan Woman? “I choose again.” As so many others have done and do daily, this Bregdan Woman chose and chooses to begin writing again. And again. And again. And again.

PoetryFreeVerseBlankVerseProse seduces. I submit and create.

I hope that today, you too will begin –insert whatever your dream is--again. You stopped dreaming. Begin again. You are not alone. You can. I can. Let’s create a beautiful world together.

The following PoetryFreeVerseBlankVerseProse piece is a …” literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas.”