Poetically Charged April Poetry Month Newsletter, What Is A Grief Block And How Do We Fight It? 

 Hello there to all the catalysts and newsletter people who read this! I always feel like I basically am shouting into a void that doesn’t shout back when I write, especially newsletters. There’s this part of me which is always so incredibly private, I never share anything with my life even though I am a writer and poet, and so it’s this game of what do I feel comfortable saying? 

The last newsletter I held onto for a bit before sending it. I stopped it, started it, stopped it again. I thought of how easy writing was with my newsletter before it and how my mind isn’t doing anything now. How frustrating that is. How it isn’t whispering words to write down and I wonder if it’s because I’m too busy with all the works and that I don’t know what to say. 

I also coincide this newsletter with my outings I’ve made with other writers in Houston. My biggest thing I want to get back to is Write About Now Poetry on Wednesdays and being consistent and regular and supporting people again in person. But Wednesday always ends up being a low energy day or this time my stomach is being finicky and a little bit of an issue. It might be nerves with the idea of putting myself out there, it might just be my body and how it does what it does with me. 

On a cold and dreary day I walked around the bayou with writers. I was able to come in later for work and decided I’d drag my ass out and do the thing. I was reminded how many species surround us in nature and how unaware we are. I was reminded I ridiculously love caterpillars and probably need to go to a local plant store who has milkweed to grow Monarch caterpillars again. I was reminded I haven’t really been “in” the world for a bit because I’ve been doing that floating I do when I’m present but not present. 

Lots of times I get ideas at home when I’m eating. That happens a lot. Or driving, which is really inconvenient because trying to get down my thoughts and ideas through the voice app really does nothing. I need to physically be typing and I’ll look at the words that I spoke into the phone and not feel the connection, the tether, to where I was going with them. 

The tether to what I want to say has been snipped. I don’t know how to get it back. Sometimes people say putting yourself out into the world will get you to write. But, I’ve been ever so slowly trying to do that again but I don’t feel that stir of words. My mind isn’t doing what I want it to. It’s just this silent chasm unless I’m in a workshop with other writers and we have prompts or a poem to read for inspiration and then it can become a feasible beast or beasts. But I feel… not like a writer and it’s National Poetry Writing Month the holiday of poetry every year and I don’t want to not make my goal of 30 for 30. 

I also know talking about grief with another writer I found something I’ve never heard but holy shit is it real and holy shit has it been haunting me since all the terrible stuff happened. 

Grief block. 

I think that always a “writer’s” block is something else. Is something we can’t say. We don’t have the heart, or the space, or the ability to touch that right now so our body shuts down our ability to create until we can finally start to touch it. 

I have had grief block me from saying how much I miss something. Or how much I loved it. Or how, even though I was raised funny, and tough, and Midwestern, and able to face anything that we never speak the dead’s name or of the dead in my family. 

It’s like the ghosts will haunt us. It’s like their ghosts will possess us with grief and we’ll never get out of it alive or the same again. 

This friend of mine was dealing with a grief block. They were not going out because they just didn’t have it in them to go out. They were struggling because it was a grief anniversary and the grief blocked them because this thing they loved, they did, was tied to someone they loved that they lost. 

I told this friend that whenever they come back to it, it’ll be there. But not to rush it. Even if it’s a decade after something, or less or more time, this pain doesn’t care. It can be as fresh as a cut you just inflicted. Time does not heal all wounds. Time just makes it a further distance sometimes but it can still get so close to you. 

Last year I was at WOWPS (Women Of The World Poetry Slam, Baltimore, Maryland) competing and this year I made the decision not to compete. With all my works getting time off is tricky but I wanted to focus more on getting into at least one retreat. I applied to Through The Heart Of It but was put on the waitlist so that didn’t happen. Then, I was accepted into one that applied to so that was my focus this year. I’d like to add more slam poems that are newly born pieces but haven’t have the time for it. I haven’t been performing or at things and have been trying to get back to it. 

With that said, Happy Poetry Month that is when poets get to frolic and create and we are so energized to poet n shit. I want to offer some special things on my Patreon! Exclusive prompts, poems, and physical items sent to my supporters too. Just gotta find the time for all this but I do want to celebrate the month poets come out everywhere and say “this is our fucking time, watch this magic.” 

What's going on with me that you can get into 

I will have stickers coming that I drew the art behind them where the words are in my handwriting: "Weird Is Wonderful" with a Nautilus. I also have "Poetry is my love language/We are more than what we fear" in supermini, thumbnail-sized stickers. I didn't know they were such tiny babies, but I'm hoping to send them with cards for Patreon supporters (to be a supporter, here's this link: https://www.patreon.com/sarahmentalpoet).  

A new sticker is coming out! "Write that damn delightful poem!" inspired by my friend Kimberly Shaw the Closer telling me that all the time when I said something poetic.

I found cards I had been hiding (sorta!) so I’m excited to be able to rotate the cuteness of cards every month. I might just post the card that’s featured for each month on here. If I do end up repeating (I don’t see that for the rest of the year but we will see. I was supposed to get a whole shipment of cuteness cards in but never got delivered) you’ll always get just my thanks and gratitude for being a supporter.

Newsletter Prompt! I read a poem recently titled "horse" and the poet used horse as a literal metaphor for being used. How can you use a word and turn it into a metaphor for being used or the opposite direction of being replenished? Tag #sbmprompts for me to find it if you use this.

Listening to: Idaho Alien, Youth Lagoon 

Reading: Dead Bright Things, Ada Limon 

I am getting ready for: 30 for 30, I’ve already made a ton of poems for 2023 and we’re 3 months in. A local open mic tomorrow that I don’t know if I’ll read a new shit poem OR just perform a memorized one. 

Maybe it’s the hope I get for my birthday that has me (so far, so good) in an upswing. I made my birthday a holiday for myself that I always honor by not working because to be alive is a celebration. I never thought I’d be this old, that I’d have this many birthdays. I live with mental illness that is like an in-law I can never shake and that always is here even when it lets up the hold around my neck and chest. I live with anxiety and depression and a number of other things that make their presence aware all the time. I will never be “fixed or cured” but I can learn to see it and be aware that these things are me, and of me, but there’s still hope to not conquer them but give them space to do their thing. 

I’m not someone who believes in being strong all the time. Bullshit. I’ve done this song and dance and have really gotten jacked when I can’t continue to “fake it till I make it.” I listen more to my body because it’s the god of this world. And I’m grateful it heals me, keeps me going, and is a beautiful squishy machine. 

I'm really so happy you're with me. I'm happy you read me! I'm happy if you share me to with others. Writing can be such a lonely thing to do but it doesn't have to be that way. Community is what makes us great. On a hike recently I saw this random art "love is love" and I stopped in my tracks and smiled. I said to myself, yes it is, and isn't that wonderful?! And isn't that extraordinary and astounding?