This past summer, I was able to work as an intern editor for Sibling Rivalry Press, a small poetry and fiction press in Little Rock, Arkansas. I am a creative writing major, and I’ve done my fair share of peer critiquing and editing for students, but this was the first time I would be put to the test by editing for adults in a professional environment. Though I was excited, I was also terrified that I wouldn’t be able to do the job justice.
Over the course of the summer, I edited for a few poets that I’ve been fans of for some time. The most worthwhile experience for me, however, was during the Kaleidoscope LGBT film and culture festival. At that festival, I got to help a new author debut their first collection as well as talk with many old and new customers for the press. It was awesome being able to talk to people about what they love and what they struggle with and give them book suggestions based off of that. At that same festival, I got to meet Randi Romo, author of Othered, and she talked a lot about how she has been an activist for the LGBT community for many years and how that’s impacted her as a queer writer. For her, writing was another form of activism, but it was also a way for her to confront all that she’s faced in a healthy way.
Talking with Romo and other authors throughout my internship about their experiences and their writing taught me about how writers write for different reasons. Romo writes for activism and as a way to confront her past obstacles. Allison Joseph, author of Corporal Muse, writes because she loves to write and capture the beauty of everyday things. Collin Kelley, Bryan Borland, Seth Pennington, Savannah Sipple, Allison Joseph, and Randi Romo all write poetry, but it is not the same poetry, and it is not for the same reasons that they write poetry. This experience has forced me to ask myself the question: why do I write poetry?
I started writing poetry when I was about 8 years old in the form of songs and for Christmas cards that I would give to my parents. I didn’t know that poetry could exist for poetry’s sake until I was a bit older, and I read Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. It wasn’t until high school that I was confronted with poetry that didn’t rhyme and wasn’t defined by meter. I had found my poetry then. Even so, it wasn’t until I started working with the press that I understood the goal I had with my poetry, conveniently set as the press motto: disturb and enrapture. I had found my goal. I wanted to write poetry that made people wince, maybe even cry, but also share it with everyone they know. I wanted to write poetry like Theresa Davis, who can have you laughing and crying all at once and for sure sharing it to all your facebook followers.
But I am not Theresa Davis, and a goal is not always the same as a purpose. I still work with the press today, and it’s been over a year since I started with them. The most impactful experience I’ve been given by working over all of that time with Sibling Rivalry Press has not been engaging with the writers, reading drafts of poetry, or even sharing my own work with the press by my side. It’s been the readers. With every event I have gotten to meet and shake hands with readers of poetry, new and old. The thing about poetry is that it’s intimate, and readers have all different reasons to read it. Some of them read to be angry, some for comfort, some because they don’t have the time for a full-length novel. It’s by meeting all of these readers that I’ve found my purpose in writing, which is simply sharing my stories.
I write to share a part of myself in the most beautiful way I know how. I write, not to work through anything, but to share that I’ve worked it through. I write to show others all the pieces of myself and what I find interesting and disturbing. I write to share what I am enraptured by in the hopes that I will enrapture others, and someone may have a moment of, “hey, me too.” I am grateful to Sibling Rivalry Press for giving me the amazing opportunity to find that in myself and to the Honors program for helping give me the time to dedicate toward that purpose.
