For the last fourteen years, I’ve published the work of talented poets from around the world on websites I’ve created.
On my earlier sites, I set up submission guidelines that asked poets to submit poems that were nuanced, sophisticated, urbane, mature, and that possessed depth and refinement, the kind of poetry that appeals to me.
I have been writing poetry seriously for around sixteen years and it always seemed to simply flow out of me. It wasn’t until I had published thousands of poems by other people and written thousands of poems of my own that I realized that the criteria I had set forth for poetry submissions described my own work.
It turns out my own poems are sophisticated, nuanced, mature, deep, and refined. I had spent so much time focusing on other people’s poetry that I didn’t realize that I was describing my own work.
It was a wonderful moment when I realized who I was as a writer, that I was the person who was creating that type of poetry, it was like hearing my own voice for the first time.
Each of us has a unique voice, a way of interpreting the world that no one else possesses. What’s yours?