WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW BEFORE / Ode to Mile Repeats / After
Gabby L.
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The uniting theme across these three poems is temporality: of friendships (WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW BEFORE), of experiences (Ode to Mile Repeats), and of communities (After). This year, I've tried to be more truthful and direct in my poems, both in form and content. Instead of leaning on metaphors and obscure, labyrinthine sentences to indirectly convey my opinions, I've been focusing on balancing my writer's voice and rhetorical choices with being upfront about my emotions in a way that (hopefully) resonates with the reader. While each of these three poems is bittersweet, an important aspect of letting go is understanding that loss will still hurt, even as you move forward. Poetry is my way of making peace with old memories, putting my regrets into words and laying them to rest.
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Creativity is the willingness to radically reinterpret the world around you, to find art and beauty and identity in the messiness of the everyday and to make those visions into reality. Creativity is joy, and bravery, and living. Creativity is knowledge that always becomes hope in the end.
