What to Do When Your Poetry Feels Blocked

You can’t force what doesn’t want to exist.

It’s the end of the year, the end of a decade, and I have been through some challenging times in the days prior. I wanted to end the year on a high note. I wanted to write positive poetry, something inspiring, something moving, something hopeful, and maybe even happy.

But, more and more, I think I am beginning to realize that’s not always who I am as a poet. That my responsibility to craft and audience alike is simply this: to share what’s real in my poetry and my scribblings.

Anything less is cheap, and we don’t do cheap here, do we?

But back to those final days of one decade, staring down the humbling beginning of a new one, what was wrong with me and why couldn’t I get the poetry I wanted toout of me?

Because it wasn’t true. Keep reading, and let’s take a closer look.

Don’t coerce your creativity

The truth is this, I was trying to coerce my creativity into being something less than it wanted to be, than it needed to be. I was trying to take the fine material of my poetry and force it into a cheap knock-off. There was another poem, another collection of poems, begging to be written, and I was ignoring them for the poetry I wanted to write.

Don’t do that. Don’t sell out your truth for a facade.

You see, my friend and neighbor of over three decades died suddenly on Christmas day, and the truth is, I was and am at the time of this writing, in a dark and challenging place. I was healthy in mind, spirit, and mostly so in body (that’s a different story) while trying to write those poems. But I was in a darker mood, my truth was grittier than the prettied up lies I wanted to cover over with half-truth and call poetry. Sometimes our work is like this isn’t it?

And don’t misunderstand, what I wanted to write would have been true in many senses of the word. But not authentic, not real, not reflective of where I was in spirit or psyche. And that means it would have been something less, something irresponsible to the call and pull of poetry itself.

That’s what we have to promise ourselves and our readers faithfully to not give an inch on.

Find and follow your flow

Here’s what we ought to do instead: find what wants to flow and follow it.

I’ve often echoed that truism that says, “You can’t edit a blank page.” And that truth definitely holds here. You can’t force what doesn’t want to exist. You have to embrace where you are, what your life experience is, and what your reflections and observations have encountered.

I get it, you’ve been through some tough stuff. And, if you’re like me, you worry that no one will want to read the hard stuff you’ve been through. Hell, they’re going through it too. But that right there is exactly why we owe a responsibility as writers and poets to share these grittier truths in our work.

Others are going through similar and we have the words they might desperately need to read at this moment. We might be the poets to craft the poem they need to know they’re not alone, to know how to put together some kind of sense from the chaos they’re going through.

That’s our sacred obligation.

A word on authenticity

So, for me, time had teeth, the days were filled with sunshine but night seemed glued to the soul, and everywhere I went I could hear the not always quiet counting down of clocks.

I had experienced a death of a loved one, and so that theme, for a time, becomes a part of my authenticity. Not to wallow in, or to cheapen my work with, but the opposite. To explore as only poets sometimes can. To step back from and observe through the practiced eyes, ears, heart and soul stuff of a writer.

I have to do this for you as much as for me. And maybe sometimes more so for me than you, if we’re being honest. And that doesn’t mean everything I write will go out into the world, not at the moment. Maybe with time. Some of it has to stay back, has to sit for a while longer, fermenting into a better tasting wine. That’s OK too. That’s all part of it.

But when you find yourself in a similar place, embrace what’s calling you to write and trust yourself as a poet. Trust yourself as a human who has been through some shit, and can help someone else through this unique skill-set that you have.

Wrapping things up

When I found the words harder to pull from my brain, I had to hit pause, I had to sit down and think it through. It was painfully obvious what was going on, I was getting in my own way. I wanted to write something that my soul wasn’t in alignment with. I was trying to coerce my creativity instead of embracing my authentic truth, as rough and challenging as it was to face.

When you find yourself in a similar place, remember the lessons of this article, remember to embrace your truth and don’t judge yourself or your work too quickly or too harshly. Embrace your creativity, don’t stifle it with your expectations. Find and follow your flow.