As writers, it is our right to use poetic language; this is something some people call poetic license. As I have written, poetry is the language of my intestines, it is the anchor that provided a safe port to land my emotions, and it is the salt that my writing needed to have flavour. Poetic language makes me feel safe, especially in a moment where AI tools are taking over art forms and I see myself often losing the ability to dance with the threads that make my writing what it is. Poetry is the thread, poetry is the collagen, the thing that binds with freedom.
As I read in a dusty book I fished from my bookshelf: “Glaciers do make noises, and flowers certainly bloom, but when forests reach out to do murder, the writer is exercising poetic license- and so long as the image accurately reflects the sense of what’s going on, the reader only benefits.”
As much as I hate to admit it, I have been using Chat GPT in my job when it comes to summarising concepts, making lists, or drafting documents. As creatives, I think we need to accept the existence of this new technology and the way it will impact our work (an essay I will write very soon). Even though I don’t use it for my creative work, I have often fallen into the trick of using it to “save time” and summarise a complicated concept. Outsourcing cognitive skills will have an impact on my creativity, and this is scary. I think art requires effort, just as love does. Eric Fromm taught that love is something you need to work on, just like a practice, an art, a craft. He said “Love requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.”
Scared to lose the creative effervescence that guided so much of my work, I thought the only antidote to this would be to write poetry again. A poetic antidote, ironically.
Everyone writes poems in different ways, I do it as a free flow, as something that emerges without any thinking, from the insides of my gut. My most creative time in life, which eventually brought me to coin the term poetic antidotes and begin thinking about it, was when I wrote poetry as part of a group of writers. Poetry was the root of my creative effervescence, the place where I felt most free - which to me is fundamental to be creative.
March is poetry month, and before it ends I want to do something I have never done before, share my poetry with you. This is, truly, a piece of my heart. I hope it awakens something in you!
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