My Journey into Poetry & What I Learned from Doing the Sealey Challenge

When I was in elementary school my mother didn’t want me to participate in the D.A.R.E. program. Her reasons were religious. While my peers were learning about the effects and usages of cannabis and hallucinogens in a failing drug education program, I happily escaped to the library. Growing up a Jehovah’s Witness, I didn’t have many friends at school. I didn’t sing happy birthday or eat birthday cupcakes, I didn’t play sports and was terribly uncoordinated, I wasn’t allowed play dates outside of school, I didn’t watch Nickelodeon or MTV and understood few pop-culture references. I was constantly trying to convert my classmates, imagining myself to be a modern-day prophet possessing an unshakeable faith equivalent to the zealous fervor of biblical characters like Sarah and Job. Suffice it to say, I often felt an outsideness and struggled making social bonds and friendships. On top of being a Jehovah’s Witness, I was a brown-multiracial-girl in a predominately white school and was often the brunt of fat shaming, classism, and racism rolled into one. I didn’t always know what was happening in the moment, but as an adult, I can look back with clarity and confidently say, “Wow! Yeah…that was messed up.”

There was one shelf in my elementary school library dedicated to poetry. I remember spending my library “escape from D.A.R.E. time” reading book after book pulled from that shelf. From what I remember, they were mostly collected anthologies (nature poems, animal poems, sports poems) and more than a couple Shel Silverstein books. Books I couldn’t finish in the hour, I brought home to read alone in the room I shared with my younger sister. I got in the habit of reading poetry out loud in a British accent. Who knows why I thought this was the way poetry had to be read, but my ten-year-old self relished in the theatrics and imagined sophistication of a faux English accent. I remember reading Lewis Carrol’s “Jabberwocky” and delighting in the silliness—

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

            Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

            All mimsy were the borogovees,

            And the mome raths outgrabe.

I had no idea what it meant and I liked that. I liked the magic of nonsense and the joyousness of sound. This was very different from the religious and biblical reading I was doing with my mother and at The Kingdom Hall—which had a very clear meaning, leaving no room for ambiguity or nuance, was persuasive and moralistic— bordering on propaganda.

I also loved this poem by Emily Dickinson:

            If I can stop one heart from breaking,

            I shall not live in vain;

            If I can ease one life the aching,

            Or cool one pain,

            Or help one fainting robin

            Unto his nest again,

            I shall not live in vain. (8)

And “Dreams” by Langston Hughes:

            Hold fast to dreams

            For if dreams die

            Life is a broken-winged bird

            That cannot fly.

            Hold fast to dreams

            For when dreams go

            Life is a barren field

            Frozen with snow.

After I finished all of the poetry books in my elementary school library, I was hungry for more and penned a letter to the Librarian, Mr. K, asking if the school could “please get more poetry books.” Mr. K was a bohemian educator and was one of the only men I knew with long hair, defying the heteronormative gender roles I was being indoctrinated with. Once, I saw Mr. K smoking a cigarette outside of the grocery store in town and realized, much to my dismay and subsequent disappointment, that teachers were fallible. I began to view all the adults in my life through a suspicious, albeit, more realistic lens. Perhaps this marked the beginning of my “coming of age.”

The letter was never answered and the school did not buy more poetry books, but my love of poetry had been sparked and solidified.

On an academic scholarship, I studied poetry during my undergraduate studies at Colorado College. After graduating I was accepted into two MFA programs; unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to financial constraints and, if I’m being completely honest, a fair amount of anxiety (I keep telling myself, it’s never too late to try again). Since then, I engage with poetry on a daily basis—reading, writing, and listening to podcasts like “The Slow Down,” “CommonPlace,” “New Yorker Poetry Podcast,” “Poetry off the Shelf” and “VS.” I’ve participated in several writing workshops this year, through Instagram Live, Kundiman, Costura Creative, BEOTIS, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop (I’ve also taken two excellent nonfiction and fiction workshops with Esmé Weijun Wang). Before the pandemic, I was performing at open mics and poetry events—I don’t know how everyone else is feeling, but I miss the energy of in-person interaction.

I spent most of my twenties avoiding poetry. A fickle lover, I disregarded poetry out of fear that it would never be a viable career; and I harbored a sneaking suspicion that I was actually a total crap writer. I also spent most of my twenties depressed, working two jobs, and in more than one emotionally (and physically) abusive relationship. Don’t get me wrong, there were good things too—I went to New York for the first time, I finished an MA in education, I sang some really fierce karaoke, and once—I got a perfect bullseye playing darts.

In the last three years, I have reunited with poetry and at the risk of sounding sentimental or dramatic, returning to poetry has been a return to myself. I have been sending lots of work out for publication, and although I have received more rejections than acceptances, I know that this is “par for the course” (I have never golfed, but I take this to mean, “what’s to be expected”). In a recent episode of “Poetry off the Shelf” with Terrance Hayes, “I Love You, Wanda,” producer and interviewer Helena de Groot, shares that at one point in Wanda Coleman’s life, she had received 3,000 rejections—which means—we all have a lot of work to do (it also means we need to be reading more Wanda Coleman).

This past month, I participated in the Sealey Challenge. Started in 2017 by poet and educator Nicole Sealey, the challenge prompts participants to read one book of poetry (or chapbook) everyday through the month of August—that’s thirty-one books in thirty-one days. Yes, it’s hell year 2020 and what better way to salvage what little humanity is left in the world with poetry—serving as balm to soothe all the blistering, festering wounds of this year (and really a culmination of centuries, let’s be honest). I know I probably don’t need to remind you, but just in case you need a reality check—there’s a global pandemic, a new uprising in the demand for racial justice (the Civil Rights Movement was never truly over…did you think it was?), it’s the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and we’re in an election year to get an illegitimate president out of office, and there’s climate change looming in the foreground. I considered reading Dante’s, Inferno for the challenge, but why travel through the circles of hell when we’re in all nine?

This was my first year participating in the challenge and I have been slowly collecting poetry books over the past few months. I’m not rolling in the dough nor do I have tons of disposable income at my fingertips (I’m currently working as a nanny), I’m merely a planner and have gotten better at budgeting for things I think are important. And yes, I think books are important. Let me rephrase that, I know books are important. Judge me if you will, I’m a self-proclaimed book hoe.

Participating in the Sealey Challenge is one of the best things I have ever done, period. It reignited that same exhilaration I felt as a child discovering poetry for the first time. In an early draft of this essay (parroting a poet I heard) I wrote, “We’re in a poetry renaissance…” and then I read Nate Marshall’s, Finna. Here’s some lines from the poem “&nem”: “&every moment you declare renaissance / is just every moment you fools been paying / the right attention.” (110)

Right? Right. Maybe the poetry canon has been reading all wrong. Actually, I know the poetry establishment has been reading all wrong. If you’re only reading white writers—something is terribly, terribly wrong. Really if you’re reading list is made up of primarily white, cisgendered, straight men, I have to ask—do you even know poetry?

Here’s a three-line poem from Clint Smith’s collection Counting Descent, called “Canon”:

            Our stars weren’t meant for

            their sky. We have never known

            the same horizon. (44)

Sometimes, I wonder if the only people who are interacting with poetry are other poets. I know this can’t be entirely true, but I wonder and I worry about the insular and self-congratulatory nature of this particular art form. But maybe this wondering and worrying is for naught. Sharing my Sealey Challenge journey on social media put me in contact with a larger community of poetry readers, lovers, and writers. Following the hashtag was motivating and seeing Nicole Sealey and other poets actively engaging with readers (myself included) was equally encouraging. Sometimes social media does the work of making us feel estranged from others and distanced; but sometimes it really does feel social and connecting. Reading books can be a lonely endeavor, writing can also feel this way. And should we need reminding, there are real people behind social media avatars, just as there are real people who write poems—it’s good to remember not everyone is a bot.

I learned there is an art to the meta nature of writing a good blurb; and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the condensed versions of entire books of poetry into delicious small bite-sized paragraphs, almost as much as I enjoyed reading the books themselves. One of my favorites was Danez Smith writing about Thrown in the Throat, by Benjamin Garcia, which starts with this sentence: “This book is a slut.”

I also enjoyed reading the acknowledgments written by poets. It’s humbling to see the amount of support poets receive while writing. I enjoyed seeing too, the overlap—some poets frequent the acknowledgment pages and it makes me feel hopeful and grateful. Contrary to the image of the lone poet I have been entertaining over the years, poetry happens within community. I’m inviting lone poet to a party, with the caveat that she won’t be the only one with social anxiety and childhood trauma.

Besides learning a lot about the craft of poetry, I learned how much I can actually accomplish in a day and experienced a new invigoration to make every day count (don’t worry, this isn’t turning into a motivational speech, and I’m not about to be Robin Williams shouting, “carpe diem” to a bunch of pubescent teen boys à la Dead Poet’s Society). What I want to say is that I got a hell of a lot done during the month of August—The Sealey Challenge lit a fire under my ass and I am grateful to Nicole Sealey for starting this challenge.

In Library of Small Catastrophes, Alison C. Rollins writes a Cento called, “Cento for Not Quite Love,” made up of lines from eighty-three different poets (if I counted correctly). Here is my Cento made up of lines from all 31 poets I read during The Sealey Challenge:

Cento #thesealeychallenge2020

and live in violet and breathe in mystery

guess what, YOU aren’t normal, or real either

the small animal in you thrusts for sky, rises out

without you. what kind of world is this that harasses you

This craving carves a cave.

Take a breath and call it prayer

your heart against an eagle feather—

the sibilance we submit to and the wild language of air

Hello. Do you know who I am?

I give you permission to enter—

In our home in our family we are ourselves, real feelings, Be true. Yet I’m serious

I love you        love he loves    she loved

do you understand what I am saying    I confess I have been trying

            the sun go                                            es round as eve

I wanted to die last week

ain’t yet no word for a world without fear

each day we are renamed like a new monsoon

forest of beginnings. I am never alone. I do not bury. I do not

i don’t glisten to you    i’m always glistening

Forgive me. I was always about to understand you.

My laughs with you live on the edge of a puddle

Maybe there is still something on the night that smells of pleasure or

You’re not the first piece of gentleness to have crossed this hand.

There is a color inside of the fucking, but it is not blue

panting toward the stars

which unfurls in an aurora of orgasmic light

I want the journey to be long & strange, like a map

this hardened honey, this slow drip of joy

Our skin making a sound like ant wings or ghosts. We love.

You are not dead.

You will know her when you see her.

Notes:

 I accessed “Jabberwocky” and “Dreams” on The Poetry Foundation website.

 “If I can stop one heart from breaking” is from The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson published by Barnes & Noble Inc. in 2003.

 The line “at one point in Wanda Coleman’s life, she had received 3,000 rejections” is pulled from this quote from the episode “I Love You, Wanda” from the podcast “Poetry Off the Shelf:” “Because there’s this moment early on in her life where, you know, she wants to be a writer and she’s sending out poem after poem after poem. And she’s getting rejected. And I think at some point, as she tells it, she’s collected 3,000 rejection slips. At that point she thinks, well, I must be doing something wrong.” [15:56-16:10]

 Danez Smith’s blurb for Thrown in the Throat, can be found on the back of the book, published by Milkweed Editions 2020.

 “Cento #sealeychallenge2020” is composed of lines borrowed from the following poets in order of appearance (I have made very small changes to spacing, capitalization, and punctuation): Airea D. Matthews, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Phillip B. Williams, Raquel Salas Rivera, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Clint Smith, Arthur Sze, Arika Foreman, Solmaz Sharif, Alison C. Rollins, Layli Long Soldier, Eloisa Amezcua, Kaveh Akbar, M. NourbeSe Philip, Yuki Jackson, Nate Marshall, Victoria Chang, Hanif Abdurraqib, Paige Lewis, Benjamin Garcia, Chinaka Hodge, Ariana Reines, Carl Phillips, Maggie Nelson, Jayy Dodd, Tracy K. Smith, Chen Chen, Tiana Clark, Hala Alyan, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, and Nikky Finney.