Category: writing

What’s with Galen Skye

What’s with Galen Skye

Hi everyone,

New Website
So obviously, we have moved my site to its own domain and I am really excited about merging my Poetry with my Fiction and Essays. With a poetry book coming out over the summer and two fiction collaborations happening, it just seems like the best time.

Expanded Content
Over the past couple of years I have been asked if I could post about BEING a poet along with posting my poems, and so since people have asked, that’s what they will get. I am looking forward to sharing a lifetime of anecdotes on being a poet, even the part where it snuck up on me that I was!
Meanwhile, I have several new poems to post this week, and I hope you enjoy them and that you enjoy some of the essays that I will be posting from years past. They are going to be archived on the site and when we get them up, I’ll let you know!

Poetry Readings
Mind you, this is going to be a new adventure, but given that I have been recording readings of some of my sonnets (using Original Pronunciation for Shakespeare), I am starting to get a better feel for doing it and a slight better comfort with the entire idea.  What it comes down to, is that I even I prefer to sometimes hear a poet read their words, so why should I be surprised that others want that of me, too.  Keep an eye out!

Whispers in Twilight
My upcoming book “Whispers in Twilight”, a collection of poems written through out my life time up until now, spanning from 1985 (I was 11) to 2016 should be ready for Launch by August. We had some technical difficulties, but I’m feeling pretty confident that I can get things going now that the sun is shining and the ice has melted away.
As things come together, we will have more information, some promotions and a lot of poetry written on the fly to keep me from loosing my mind!

Have a wonderful day and enjoy Spring (it just got here in Michigan.)

Galen

Why Poetry?

Why Poetry?

I get asked this often, and while I am not certain that I have a definitive answer, I’m going to attempt to elucidate how poetry is part of my life and why I write it.

I don’t know that I ever looked forward at the life that I planned for myself and said “I want to be a poet when I grow up.” Astronaut, yes. Doctor or Firefighter, most definitely. I even eventually knew that I wanted to be a WRITER… (with all the teenage drama that idea entailed at the time.) Over the years, I became an Anthropologist and Researcher as that is in my bones, and wrote a lot on the side. I wrote my first poem when I was 8, at least that I remember, and I don’t think I every really stopped writing poetry since. It has always been a way I express myself, a way to get my thoughts down and to release an emotion, memorialize a memory or have a bit of fun.

Several years ago, I helped train students for Poetry Out Loud, a national Poetry reading competition– extemporaneous speaking with poetry. It is possibly one of the most fulfilling experiences with poetry that I have ever been part of and I carry it with me to this day. A few years later a friend casually asked me what it was like being a professional poet. I blinked somewhat idiotically at her and asked her why she thought I was a POET. She laughed at me, rightly, and pointed out that not only have I taught poetry, worked on coaching with Poetry Out Loud, but I also had about 400 poems ‘under my belt’. She then asked me how in the world I could not think of myself as a poet.

I of course had to think about this… and when I found myself to compelled to write  poem about it, I realize that she might be right.

So, now that I acknowledge myself as a poet, rather late in the poetical game of my life, I have focused more on my poetry and spent time talking about it more to other groups of people. My favorite is when I get to talk to high school kids about poetry. They ask the most wonderful questions. My favorites: Do you need to be educated to be a poet? Does it take discipline to force yourself to write poetry?

These for me are the fundamental things that help me grow in my poetry. I have already said being ‘creative on demand’ has been the hardest job I have ever had. Now that I work full time at home, writing, editing and researching, sitting down at my desk and saying “I’m going to be creative today” can be such a struggle. It is important, however, to do just that. You have to create the habits of sitting down and writing if you want to keep things flowing continuously. While I don’t write poetry everyday or even every week, although I’m challenging myself to try that right now, I do try to write every day in some fashion. The process of writing keeps my mind sharp, it keeps me from loosing my verbal lexicon and allows an easier access to my more philosophical side.
I tend to write my best poetry after I’ve had time to think about what I am writing. I rarely writing in a moment of extreme passion, but rather my poetry is that of reflection. When I do write in ‘the moment’ it is often an extreme situation. Poetry, for me, is an expression of a single moment, and therefore once the poem is written (or sometimes even before it is finished) the  moment has ended. When I write reflectively on something, it allows me to look at a situation or moment from more sides than I would when I write in the immediate flush of emotion. Each way is good and produces something wonderful and unique. I’m a happy poet, so there too, I tend to not write when in a bad or maudlin mood.

That’s why I write, and how, I suppose. Right now I am challenging myself to use my poetry to address things in our society and culture that need a spotlight pointed on them. I’m also started a new challenge to spend a year writing poems in Iambic Pentameter (Blank Verse). If you want to be a poet, look to those who have gone before you, learn their style and skills. Don’t learn them to copy them, learn them to expand your horizons and give you more skills and ingenuity to work with.

Happy writing!
Galen