While updating my Facebook Privacy Settings today due to their new mess of a policy, my eyes got caught on a link I have added under my websites: http://www.poemhunter.com/rita-el-khoury. No, that isn’t a typo. Unbelievable as it may be to those who know me from the Symbian/Nokia blogging scene, I used to be a young (rising) poet once.
I started writing in 1996, at the age of 11, but I eventually threw away everything I wrote in 2000 and decided to start fresh. At the beginning, it was exclusively all French poetry, until 2003 when I noticed I knew enough English words to venture in that area as well. I also have some random Arabic poems here and there. The problem though is that my last poem dates back to October 2007 and it saddens me.
Given that I believe I actually did have some sort of talent, which many of my friends / teachers / random readers on PoemHunter seem to agree with, I think it’s a total shame that I stopped. If you’re wondering whether I didn’t have anything to get out, darn it, I left my country, family, friends for a whole year in 2008-2009! If that isn’t poetry-inciting, I don’t know what is. So reason or no reason, the fact remains that I haven’t rhymed in over 2 years.
I think I need an incentive, a reason to awaken the poet inside, maybe a bit of exposure for my early work to remember how great it felt when I received criticism, or maybe just the satisfaction of knowing that I’m being read, somewhere by someone. Heck, I don’t know what is required to get the beast back up and running, but I’m going to try my best. I don’t want to look back in 30 years and say that I didn’t fight for my gift or that life got the best out of it. Plus, I used to love those highly emotional moments when I ended up suprised by my own writing as the words flew from my hands as if dictated by a superior force. It was transcendingly spiritual.
So what’s a girl to do in order to awaken the poet within?
Well, I’ll make a pact to myself to post one poem as a Note on Facebook every weekend.
It can be a new poem or one of my old writings, which at some point in time will run dry and leave me with the necessity or writing something. I happen to believe it’s a good strategy and it’s not as optimistic as my A Poem A Day venture from years ago, so let’s see how it spans out.
As for the choice of Facebook, it’s only for the convenience of visibility, plus control over comments and privacy. The notes will be public for everyone, and if I do manage to get my poetry juices flowing, I will post the new writing on PoemHunter as well.
Tags: Facebook, PoemHunter, Poetry
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