Local poets on the benefits of slowing down

In today’s online world, breaking news alerts ping our cellphones every couple of minutes, and social media often demands (and drains) our time, focus and energy.

“With all of this information, we often lose sight of what’s immediately around us,” says Dr. Troy Jackson, a local physician. “We lose our inner voice. We lose the perspective of the good and meaningful aspects of our lives. And we lose ourselves in the mix.”

Mindfulness, continues Jackson, “has been extensively studied in the scientific literature and has been shown to dramatically reduce depression and anxiety, can help alleviate stress by reducing cortisol levels and improve our sleep quality. There is even data that regular mindfulness can improve blood pressure, reduce chronic pain and decrease risk of dementia later in life.”

Denying yourself these opportunities, Jackson adds, could also result in future remorse. “It’s a major regret in my older patients — missing out on the simple joys in life because they were constantly in the rat race of work, schedules and reaching the next rung on whatever ladder they’re climbing,” he says.

When it comes to mindfulness and being present, poets are among the most practiced. With this in mind, Xpress reached out to several local poets for this year’s Wellness Issues to gauge their thoughts on what writing has taught them about slowing down and observing the world around them.

On humility  

“Humanity starts with observation. To do something good — whether for yourself or for another — you must first observe something that could be improved or corrected, recognize it and then act. Observation is also the starting point of a poem. Poems are what escape from the long maze of a writer’s mind, but it’s an observation, something about the world around us — a kind gesture you witness on the street, an idiosyncrasy that endears you to a friend, a wish for something to be different in our world — that first enters that maze and is later transformed into art. I do think the act of creating poetry, and all art, is a grasp toward humanity: By observing the details of the world, of others, we can honor them and spend time with them in our own way. We can shed assumptions and prejudices and build anew. We can learn gratitude and put it into practice by offering our time and willingness to truly see someone and the world around them. By observing, we become not just better artists and writers but more humble and complete humans.” — Brandon Amico, author of Disappearing, Inc.

On momentary bliss 

“For me, the practice of observation is a form of meditation — a means of mediating my emotional and sensory experiences of the world. Instead of being subsumed in the muck of consciousness — which is to say, of the self — we can try to notice what we are thinking and feeling (and seeing and hearing and smelling and touching and tasting), and that can create a blissful pause in which thought and reactivity are momentarily suspended — a split second of nirvana, of pain relief, of love — before the self reasserts itself. Transcribing these observations onto the page can be the beginning of a poem, which can, in turn, extend these moments — this bliss — and act as a balm and a salve against the incessant and excessive stimulation of our senses and our psyches without awareness and without gratitude, which is to my mind the antithesis of wellness and a thankless way to live.” — Brit Washburn, author of Notwithstanding and Homing In: Attempts on a Life of Poetry and Purpose

On gratitude and perspective 

“I think most writers, including myself, are constantly trying to view the world from different perspectives. So, when it comes to observing the smaller parts of life, it’s inevitable that you’ll end up feeling small yourself. I think viewing the world this way does create a sense of empathy but also an immense amount of gratitude for life. If I were a worm, I sure as hell would be thankful for every moment I wasn’t in the beak of a bird.” — Clint Bowman, author of Pretty Sh*t and If Lost 

On being fully alive 

“Observing has taught me to notice what I’m noticing, which then opens a whole new world that’s expansive and filled with mystery — exactly what a poet needs to create. I now guide students in my courses into becoming active participants in their lives by paying attention to their observations. It’s a door to mindfulness and deep listening that anyone can tap into and discover what’s present, what state one is in and what to do about it, what feelings and perceptions are emerging or fading. This kind of observing inevitably makes one a better human who’s fully alive to life in all its manifestations.” — Mildred Barya, author of multiple poetry collections, including her latest, The Animals of My Earth School 

On brief meditations 

“Every morning when I bring my compost into the bin at work, I observe the decaying bouquets and squash blossoms to see what emerges — an image I can myself compost into a poem; a brief meditation on what it means to be a body that will one day also decompose. It’s a moment in which I observe in quiet and express gratitude for having been well-fed the day before. And it has led to lines in poems, including this one from my manuscript-in-progress about Marie Lafarge, a 19th-century French woman accused of poisoning her husband’s fruitcake with arsenic. Here the compost appears in a piece about the funeral of Marie’s mother:

From the kitchen, a cousin cries. Laments
how much I look like Mama. This is untrue,
and therefore unkind. I resemble her only in how
crops resemble the compost from which they grow.” — Emily Paige Wilson, author of Four Months Past Florence 

On embracing curiosity 

“The act of noticing is integral to what it means to be a poet — noticing the mundane, the beautiful and paying attention to the mundane so much so that you see beauty in it. Poetry teaches me to see the world differently, to approach every being and every experience with curiosity. The mindset becomes what does this particular snowfall actually look like, smell like, feel like? — not what do I think snow looks like, based on my past experiences of snow. It’s a mode of being radically present in the world, and this way of being helps me find delight in the most unexpected places and moments.” — Whitney Waters, an English instructor at Western Carolina University who is currently working on her first full-length manuscript

On connection 

“For me, being a reader and writer of poetry insists upon a different pace to living — it brings a gentleness to sight, to thought. I can look at the veins of a leaf and know this is a meaningful use of my time, because I am giving attention to nature, to beauty, and I am learning something about what it is to exist in relation to other living beings, objects, weather, hue. I think observation makes way for noticing connection, it situates me toward connection, which can lead to gratitude, empathy and tenderness, all of which we desperately need more of in this world.” — Mackenzie Kozak, author of the forthcoming collection, no swaddle