In the autumn of 2019 I read an eloquent magazine essay by Meredith Heller and took note of the fact that she was a California Poet in the Schools. I contacted her and said, "You have a book to write, don't you?" and she responded, "I certainly do!"
That book rapidly manifested as WRITE A POEM, SAVE YOUR LIFE! which is now scheduled for publication in the spring of 2021 by New World Library.
The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted Meredith's teaching schedule in the Marin County schools of northern California. But she hardly wasted a moment in taking her classes online, both as a series of free YouTube videos and fee-based Zoom classes.
Below, you can click and subscribe to the YouTube series and/or connect with Meredith directly for more information on her Zoom classes. This page also shares the introduction to Meredith's upcoming book, recounting how the life-saving potential of poetry was so important in her youth.
At a time when homeschooling has become a new reality for countless families, we've all been given an unprecedented opportunity to explore and express the inner life. Meredith's book could not be a more aptly timed & titled guide to the saving grace of poetry — for kids of all ages. • D. Patrick Miller, agent, Fearless Literary
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A performing poet and singer/songwriter with graduate degrees in writing and education, Meredith Heller is a California Poet in the Schools who leads poetry writing workshops for teens and adults, and teaches in Marin County schools and at Juvenile Hall. Meredith received a fellowship to The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and went on to complete her graduate work in writing and education. She attended Naropa University's graduate program in Writing and Poetics, and continued at Goddard College to study creative process and alternative models of education. Meredith is a frequent contributor to Rebelle Society & We’Moon; her work has also appeared in Quiet Lightning, The Aquarian, Avocet, and the book Women, Their Names, & The Stories They Tell. She is the author of the chapbook SONGLINES (Finishing Line Press, 2019).
Experience and subscribe to
Meredith's free YouTube series
For more information on Meredith's Zoom classes
for young poets worldwide, visit her website.____________________________________________
INTRODUCTION
Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold,
ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry. — Mary OliverPoetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language. — Lucille Clifton
At thirteen years old, I’m living on my own after leaving home and school. I live in domes I’ve built in the woods, the tops of old dairy barns, and abandoned houses along the Potomac River. I do whatever I can for cash; gardening, cleaning, making jewelry from dead snakes I find on the road. I teach myself to tan the snake skin, attach it to a tube of beads I’ve sewn, and make it into bracelets I sell at a store in town.
I’m kicking around with a free-spirited gang of musicians, experimenting with drugs, testing our edges, all of us desperately wanting to figure out who we are and what we believe in. I watch as my friends go down: mental hospitals, suicide, overdose. Struggling with life-draining depressions I’ve had since I was a kid, I often lose my faith.
But each time I hit my lowest point, when I no longer care whether I live or die, the poetry comes. The first line is a gift, whispered in my ear; I don’t know where it comes from, but I know it’s my lifeline. I grab hold of the words, write them down, and then I dive in and don’t move for five or ten or twenty hours, until I’ve finished a new poem or song. Working on the poetry becomes a reason to live, something bigger than myself, a way to channel all my overwhelming feelings and make beauty from suffering.
At fifteen, I’m brutally beaten and raped by an old boyfriend and left for dead. In shock and shame, I crawl inside myself and stop speaking for months. I feel myself dissolving, pulling further and further away, retreating into a dark place where no one can find me. When I’m just about to let go of my life the poetry comes, and the more I write, the stronger I grow. Naming my pain and loneliness, I write:
Clenched Fist
My head is lead.
My body stone.
My heart a clenched fist.My lips that once
kissed you
are now dried up cronestoo bitter
to even
gossip.Finding my voice after months of mute numbness, I write:
How to Hum
Do you remember
how to listen
to your heart
without crying?Better yet
how to hum?
It was the high reach
of your voice
that like a rope
you climbed
out of the knotted jungle
through the burnt lung
of night.At sixteen, my best friend commits suicide. I am shocked and heartbroken, and in trying to make peace with my pain and her passing, I understand that it could have been me. I write:
Passage of Light
Years after your anger
boils itself dry
scorching the vessel
of your being cleanI come to understand
that we are the same animal
that our wounding
bleeds the same coloronly a different shade
and yours has left you
softer.It has not disfigured you
sucking pain to your shoulders
like pins to a magnetIt has not gnawed
through the nerve sheath
leaving you at its feral edge,
like me,where comfort knows no home
and my name changes
with the passage of light.
My whole life, I’ve written poems that saved me. For me, poetry writing is a path that helps me connect with myself and honor what I’m feeling, name the feelings that overwhelm me and threaten to consume me, pour myself into the deep and meticulous work of crafting a poem or song I feel good about, and turn my pain into something beautiful and tangible. Writing is the medicine that cleans out the wound and heals the hurt.
On the first day of class, I walk in to the room and tell my students, “I’m not here to teach you other people's poetry, I’m here for you to teach me your poetry. So, put down your phone, grab your paper and pen, and come outside with me.” I ask the kids, “What do you notice? What are you aware of inside and outside of you? Take in the quality of the light, the feel of the air on your skin, the water droplets balancing on the leaves, the sound of the rain, the stillness of the playground, the color of your best friend’s sneakers, the tightness in your shoulders, the hunger in your belly, the rhythm of your breathing, your sadness, your fear, your desire.”
The shift in energy is tangible. Bodies start moving, smiles break open. It’s as if all the kids have gone from being pale crumpled paper bags to colorful inflated balloons. They’re breathing, they’re connecting to themselves, they feel their bodies, they’re alive and present.
I ask them to remember five feelings and images as we walk inside and start writing.
I explain that as poets, we notice things, feel things deeply, and have a strong need to express ourselves. This expression can be cathartic and empowering. I don’t really believe that we can teach creativity or the craft of poetic writing, but I do believe that we can hone our attention to notice what moves us. We can develop a love of language and the joy that comes from working to find just the right word and right rhythm to convey our feelings. I have found that there is a magic that happens when we name our thoughts and feelings, commit them to paper, speak them out loud. We feel a sense of belonging to ourselves and others when we express ourselves clearly, feel understood, and see that other people resonate with our experience in a way that illuminates their own.
We write for fifteen minutes, and some kids ask, “What should I write?”
“Well, what was alive for you out there?” I say. “What did you experience?”
One girl offers shyly, “The clouds? The color of the sky? The gentle drips of rain on my skin? Is this right?”
“Yes,” I say. “If that’s what you experienced and it’s meaningful for you, then, yes, it’s right. Start here. Write it down. See if you can do one of two things, either flesh out the feelings and images by giving them more detail or boil them down to the bones, choosing only the most important nuggets.”“Okay!” she responds with enthusiasm. And I know she’s learning to trust herself. I know she’s learning that what she feels and thinks matters. She tells me she was having a bad day. Things are stressful at home and school. She doesn’t feel like she fits in or belongs anywhere. But after she wrote her poem today, she said she felt better. She said it felt good to connect with her feelings and write something in her own words.
In teaching poetry writing to teens, I have the honor of journeying with my students as they use writing to find their way out of darkness and back into life. Every day, I work with teens who are struggling with depression, addiction, health issues, body image issues, learning challenges, trauma, delinquency, teen pregnancy, gender and sexual identity issues, home and family problems. All of them find catharsis, healing, and empowerment through writing poems. Writing poems helps teens believe in themselves. It gives them a way to access their feelings and do something practical with them rather than running and hiding from what is painful. Writing poems gives teens a real experience of their own power and wisdom, and this gives them hope.
I am teaching in Juvenile Hall one day and a kid asks, “Why should we write poems? We’re stuck in here. It doesn’t matter what we think. Our lives are not our own.”
I suggest that their feelings, thoughts, and imaginations are where they have freedom, and they can use that freedom to explore who they are and what matters to them. We write personifications of the elements and one kid chooses fire. His poem is fierce and angry. He becomes the flames and burns down the house he grew up in. When he reads his piece in class, his voice sears the room. Everyone cheers. He smiles for the first time. He tells me that if he can burn his past in a poem, perhaps he can move forward in his life.
I always have the kids read their pieces after we write. Some are so quiet we have to lean forward to hear them, some read with dramatic flair, and some are just kicking it easy like they’re talking to their best friend or singing their favorite song. We clap after each piece because we know the courage and vulnerability it takes to share your piece out loud. I repeat their juiciest lines back to them so they know they’ve been heard and celebrated, and so the other kids learn what kind of wording, imagery, and detail bring a poem to life.
In this way, the whole classroom becomes a learning community. They’ve heard their classmates’ poems and learned that they’re not alone, that their struggles are universal. By the end of class, they’re smiling, their eyes are shining, and I know they’ve found a path in poetry writing, as I have.
The bell rings, and no one moves. They all look at me like they don’t want to leave, like they don’t want to lose this. This is my greatest moment. I believe in them and they feel it, and they begin to believe in themselves.
Go on, I say, this is yours. No one can take this from you. Keep listening inside yourselves. Keep noticing what you feel, what moves and inspires you. Make a list. Write it down. See you next week.
© Copyright 2020 by Meredith Heller. All rights reserved.
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