A group of us started a community center in Santa Monica. We've tried different programs, and three have worked really well. A poetry group. Once a week we visit Venice High and talk to girls at risk.
I need to be able to write a poem after every film and to kind of cleanse myself from the character because for about three months or so, I'm constantly living through the character's eyes.
Writing has always been my go-to form of expression. Whenever I was going through something as a kid, I would write it down and I would turn it into a poem.
Poetry can't cure cancer, but it can save your life until you die.
I love poetry. If my mind gets a bit tight or bound up with information or depressed with bad news, I find a good book of poetry is like going to the gym for an hour. My mind just expands.
When I was a kid, a pickleball hit me in the back of the head, and I had memory problems. I was in a boarding school and the nuns gave me poems to remember to try and get the memory going again.
There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.
I grew up in a sad, depressed place. I got out. Poetry saved my life.
When I have worries, fears or a love affair, I have the luck of being able to transform it into a poem.
The experience of poetry could bring my mother back to me. Poetry offers a different kind of solace - here on earth.
For me, it makes sense to address shocking experiences through poems because of the way poems also have that effect on the reader.
Writing poems is my way of celebrating with the world that I have not committed suicide the evening before.
Poetry, for me, is the answer to, 'How does one stay sane when private lives are being ransacked by public events?' It's something that hangs over your head all the time.
I always wrote poetry as a teenager and it was always so dark, but it made me feel good to get it out.
The old poets little knew what comfort they could be to a man.
Only poetry can address grief.
If you're angry, you don't have to write a poem dealing with the cause of your anger. But it needs to be an angry poem. So go ahead... write one. I know you're at least a little bit angry with me. And when you're done with your poem, decipher it as if you'd just found it printed in a textbook and know absolutely nothing about its author. The results can be amazing...and scary. But it's always cheaper than a therapist.
