“A feeling best described as sorrow that has no clear cause.”
We thought by giving him a name, it couldn’t break me so badly, but the agony still extinguishes the illumination within my irises, within my pupils, within my soul. There is a darkness deeper than I care to admit, but I cannot hide from forever. (My fire has not ignited in days, yet I cannot hide in bed and relinquish myself to the shadows completely.)
I swore to myself I would not drown in thoughts such as these, but sometimes, the devastations are greater than I can control.
It sometimes feels as though I am caught in a riptide, the ocean current pulling me away from everyone who loves me until all they are is a speck of sand, a memory.
(My honesty is raw, my words are plain. I usually hide behind an ornate metaphor crafted carefully and I tread with caution – not to overstep the boundary lines.)
I have picked up the pen several times, but the ink well is dry and my thoughts crystallize like honey thickening as it cools. Nothing makes sense when the demons take the reins & I try to swallow the bile down.
I try to offer a courageous smile, but I feel weak and collapsing is the only option I have sometimes.
Don’t judge me for the anguish I carry. Each one is a sparrow beating its wings inside my chest, desperate to be released but finding a home buried deep in my rib cage alongside that dimly burning crystal that is a barely beating heart.
(I cannot swallow for all the feathers that have climbed from my chest to my throat, from my throat to the wet insides of my mouth.)
So, instead, with this inexplicable sadness, I lie here, my heart – my sparrows – knocking against my chest (an unspoken tragedy bearing down on me).
I was so excited to interview the poet EJ Kuhl tomorrow for my Poet Spotlight for Global Poetry Writing Month, but this week has really been overwhelming for me.
Alfred just recently shared with me a reader review which I feel entitled to share a part of with you all before including his interview. A reader of Alfred’s poetry had said the following:
The candor of this review honestly speaks volumes about Alfred Gremsly’s poetry, and while I am just starting to familiarize myself with his poetry, I can tell he has the same intentions I do with my writing and my day job – to provide a voice to communities normally stigmatized.
Alfred Gremsly is an American born poet who writes about mental health and the struggle that comes with it. A lifelong sufferer of anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses, Alfred began writing poetry at the young age of twelve as a means of escaping his own mind.
Whose poetry style is most like your own?
I don’t know if anyone’s poetry is like mine. I don’t read a lot of poetry, and if I do read, it’s going to be something that’s complete opposite of what I write.
Have you received formal training for writing? If so, what’s your background? If not, what got you interested in poetry writing?
I started writing around age 12; I was a very depressed kid. We lived in the country and had nothing to do, and so, I would make homemade books for myself of my thoughts and feelings.
Who are some of your favorite poets?
Some individual poets I like to read are Jan Serene, Ashley Jane, Angie Waters, Margie Watts, and Sarah Kay Collie.
How do you feel when you’re writing a poem? Is it cathartic or do you find it draining? What types of emotions do you experience when writing poetry?
As I, myself, am a lifetime sufferer of depression and anxiety, I have extreme highs and lows. Unfortunately, it takes being in those extreme lows in order for me to get out what I’m needing to say.
I sometimes feel as if writing is a curse of sorts – so horrible would be the feelings and emotions I’m under while writing.
A lot of my poetry features fractured versions of myself as a narrative voice. What subjects do you write about and how are they influenced by your own experiences?
I write about what I’ve been through in life’s journey – my struggles with mental illness, the feelings of being mentally ill. I have overcome a lot through in life through poetry. I now have a grasp on my depression and anxieties, and I’m now on a mission to help others suffering from mental illnesses.
Am I just pretending there are voices in my head? And can anyone else hear a single thing they’ve said? Am I really talking to someone who has been talking back to me? Or have I just become a psychotic mystery? Life’s no fun pretending when you need a friend and a therapist is not the answer when you want the words to end. Can anyone hear the voices that are screaming from my head? I’ll be dead before I’m better ifI’m not already dead
Eryn lives in South Germany with their family but is originally from Oxford, UK. They work freelance as a translator and a teacher. When not writing, they’re out on their bike in the forest or dreaming up new ideas to write about. They are obsessed with vinyl, fountain pen ink, dragons and cheese. Preferably not all together. Their current favourite thing is spring blossoms against the white clouds. They are working on two new poetry collections which will be released this year, Masquerade Me and Death by Sugar, and two fiction works, a Dystopian Scifi novella called The Dust Collector and a Gothic Horror called The Black Cat Bookshop.
As a huge fan of your book, which features illuminating poetry on PTSD, I feel like I have to address that. How did you overcome your initial fears and write about a topic that is still so taboo in so many places?
I didn’t want to write something hard, or dark, and I really didn’t want to write a poetry collection that is largely autobiographical. But I found that on occasion when I shared an individual poem, that people really resonated with it. I saw that there’s a lot of poetry about anxiety and depression, but hardly anything for PTSD. And ultimately, sometimes, it is on you to begin it. It was on me to say, this is what PTSD looks like. So it became a collection. It was, and I think will remain, the most difficult collection for me to complete and publish. But I don’t regret it.
Do you sit down with a poetry idea in mind or does it slowly develop as you sit in front of the page or monitor? In other words, what is your process?
I should probably mention that I am an aphant, which means that I have no visual landscape. I cannot conjure a memory and play it back as if it is in glorious technicolour. If someone asks me to imagine a box, I cannot see the colour or texture. I see a nondescript box. So when it comes to poetry, you could say that I am a blind poet.
My visual landscape is layered with music notes and quantum physics. I hear a concept of a poem, a shiver of something, and I have to follow it through to the end. It happens a lot with a phrase, an overhead conversation, perhaps, and then I have to chase the thread to the end. I do not always know where it will turn up.
It’s cliché, but each person’s answer is uniquely their own: what is the best writing advice you have received?
Don’t lose your own poetic voice.
What are three words you would use to describe your poetry?
Lyrical Layered Whimsical
Why do you write poetry?
I have been writing poetry since I was 16, and really, have never stopped. I never intended to make something from it, I never intended to call myself a poet. I studied both poetry and playwriting at University but poetry was the one that survived the grind of assignments, of life getting in the way, and it kept coming back. I write poetry because I need to write it. It is cathartic, somehow.
Is there a common motif in your writing that you find yourself returning to?
There are a few, yes.
In Of Swans and Stars I explored the ideas of my own North Star, that place that calls you home, the direction on the compass that we follow. So swans and stars, are very important to me, and you see amber, being cast in amber, featuring often. I write a lot about Druidry, mythology and folklore. Dragons will always be in my poetry. But at the heart of it all, is always love. Love for who we are, for where we have been, and where we are going.
If you could attend a poetry writing conference taught by any author, lyricist, poet, etc., living or dead, which two to three people would you choose and why?
Larkin. I love him, I love how he writes, his raw energy. Peter Gabriel. His wordsmithery is without equal. WH Auden. I want to hear him read and see how it is reflected in his eyes. I want to see how he writes.
A thousand cranes Paper art flying For peace in the world A thousand cranes Countless painstaking Paper folds For peace in the heart A thousand cranes Flying their dance On white string For peace in the eyes A thousand cranes Quiet time Each repetition A healing caress For peace in the soul A thousand cranes Origami sorcery Peace in the world Starts with ourselves.
This weekend, I’m interviewing author and poet ML Stevens. She is extremely talented and kind. When I told her it was my birthday, she gave me an autographed copy of her poetry book “Caged Heart”.
When she’s not writing, or listening to the characters that live in her head rent free, ML Stevens can be caught with her nose in a book or running when the weather permits it. She wrote her first “novel” at a young age after looking out her window one summer day and deciding it would be cool to write a book. Since then she hasn’t been able to put the pen down. She has many more projects planned, including (hopefully) more poetry to come.
Why do you like writing poetry, and how is it different from writing fiction?
It’s where I go to when I need to get something out then and there without writing a novel. Often times, it’s where I go when I’m upset about something that has been weighing on me. Secondly, it flows easily. It’s never hard for me to know what to write into a poem.
Poetry for me is easier than writing fiction. I can whip out a poem anytime and anywhere while with fiction, I can come up with an idea like that, but it takes a lot more time and work to get it written on paper.
Where is your ideal writing space?
I have always felt weird about this question because I don’t have one ideal writing space. I enjoy writing in a coffee shop or at my desk just as much as I enjoy writing on my couch or even outside.
If you ever were to hold a poetry reading, where would you hold one?
I never have held a poetry reading but would love to do one in a cozy library like the library rat I am.
What is your biggest inspiration?
I think for poetry my biggest inspiration is life. the ups and downs of it as well as the people who are part of it. Life itself is artwork, much like poetry, and and there’s so much that I draw from it when I’m writing a poem.
Specific scenarios of hate, anger, sadness, happiness, love, friendship – even nature and all it has to offer can be found in my poetry.
What’s your favorite thing about writing poetry? Your least favorite?
My favorite thing is how quick it is for me. It’s something I can turn to when I’m in a meeting and struggling to stay awake. It looks like I’m taking notes. It’s also there when I want to write something but I am not sure if I want to start a novel or a short story.
If I had to pick a least favorite part about writing poetry, for me personally, it would be how damn personal it comes out ninety percent of the time. It’s a little more difficult for me to write a poem that isn’t personal in at least some way.
When did you begin writing? How has your poetry evolved since then?
In general, I have been writing since I was eight. I didn’t writing poetry until I was twelve or thirteen. In fact, I had never even read a lot of poetry until my middle school Creative Writing teacher made an assignment for us to write thirty different types of poems. I enjoyed writing poetry after that.
My poetry then was simplistic and not as deeply personal as it is now. As I continued to write poetry, it became more complex for me and much more personal. Many of my poems are based on my own experiences and emotions.
What’s your favorite word? Least favorite?
I can’t say I have a favorite word, but I am fond of the words scintillating and surreptitiously. I really don’t know why. For my least favorite words, I have a few that make me cringe. Gyrating is one of them.
Something long gone That can’t be recovered A broken world Filled with greed A shattered soul The pieces scattered A dreadful tempest Roars inside A tender heart That barely beats A soft voice whispers,
Isabelle Palerma 