Ryan Washington

July 8th, 2016

April is National Poetry Month -- the largest literary celebration in the world(!) -- and we want you to help us celebrate. Share with us your unique poetry experience. Writing unites us all, but we have different reasons for why it is important to us.

What do poetry and being a poet mean to you?

Why did you decide to become a poet?

How did poetry enter your life in the first place?

Maybe there was a specific poem that struck you, or you just found a connection with your pen and paper (or keyboard) and couldn't stop writing. Tell us in a poem your personal poetry story for your chance to win.

                                                The Lost Creative

I was fifteen years old when I first stumble upon my first composition styled notebook; it was around the summer transitioning into my freshman year of high school. My mother being an educator was a voracious reader and a huge proponent for being able to properly express yourself through knowledge and understanding of the world around you. She use to say the more you know the more blessings in abundance you will receive and or be a living testimony to someone else, inspiring them to be the best them that they can be. So with that lessons seeded in me I begin to use my composition journal to annotate every internal feeling that I could harvest. Releasing a soul full of emotions allowing the pen to nurse me to what I felt to be the most therapeutic way possible to feel free. Free from the synchronicity of society, free from the oppression bared upon me because of my heritage and free from the daily obstacles of discovering self in such a misleading nation.

Becoming a poet was never really something that I considered to be decision based; it was more so in the hands of the creator. The more and more I wrote in my notebook the more it became a craving and known to the people around me that poetry was something that I did religiously. I started to spark curiosity amongst my peers. My best friend at the time was a rapper and just has I loved poetry, he loved hip-hop. One day he asked me if I ever tried rapping my poetry and that day I experimented and intertwined my poems with the rhythm of an instrumental and on that day a poet/artist/musician was born. Has time continue to move forward I continue to develop my craft, learning to become more venerable with how I felt. Still keeping my gift a secret I eventually graduated high school and enlisted into the United States Marine Corps. During the time that I served I was sent out to Afghanistan, South Helmand province for a combat tour. Talk about the tenacity that I had to pull from the heavens just to make it through those eight months that I was scheduled to be there. I was exposed to a lot of graphic images that would make the average Joe lose his mind, but it was indeed my love for poetry that kept me in a place of peace in spite of the circumstances. My desire would lead me to write no matter where I was. Where every I could spill out my creative juices I would let them flow out.

            After returning from overseas, my eyes were open to a whole different reality then what was seeded in me from birth, all the way up to the very moment of me joining the armed forces. Not only had I fail victim to the chains of society, but also I discovered the depth of my self-imprisonment. I realized that I could no longer be apart of an organization that portrayed the image of being an upholder of peace and justice but in retrospect acting in opposite. Never before have I witness a whole town shut down at a specific time; from businesses to individuals pulling over on the side of the road to get out and praise their creator for all they had, which in my eyes didn’t seem like much. Comparing their actions to those in America, we can’t even get to church on time let alone get along with each other and accept some as an individual in their own truth. On this day I began my quest to unlock my spirituality and take back what is rightful mine. My mind, body, and soul; no longer would I allow myself to be pimped for energy through a system of negativity and oppression. Knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of the everyday life around me is what I started seeking ranging from different belief systems, philosophies and theories. The more and more knowledge I gained everyday the more the hunger grew until I finally had a breakthrough. One morning I woke up and something was slightly different, it was like energy behind me waking me up and guiding my steps. I could feel the full expansion of my lungs and blood flowing through every vein. I stepped outside and could feel every strand of the breeze grazing my skin, my vision seemed as if I was giving a fresh pair of eyeballs, because I could zoom in on every blade grace and I loved ever individual blade as if it was my own child. At a lost for words I called my Auntie Debbie, to explain to her what was taking place and begin to cry. She referred to scripture and told me that I had been blessed with the Holy Spirit and to embrace it and to continue on my journey as I have been doing. Now life begins and to continue to build and mold myself through righteous actions as well as touching others with my words.

            At that very moment I gained an inner standing of my purpose through the eyes of my creator. I was sent here to speak through song and poetry and to touch others and change lives. To be labeled, as a poet no longer fit me it was now the very articulation of words and how they carried to another soul is what mattered. Through my poetry or spoken words I consider my self a drop of ink to a glass of milk. My words are capable of creating instant change with in a person. Poetry has become a way of life.