As I sip my morning coffee from my chair in the den overlooking our front porch, I select from a stack of books and open “Poems” by Maya Angelou. Her poetry resonates with me, even though I’m not Black, maybe because we’re both women, but mostly because we’re both artists. I can only aspire to write such fine poetry as she.
When I wrote the 50 poems in 50 days, I was coping with sleepless nights in the in-between place, writing on my iPhone from my bed. No editing, no thinking, just capturing feelings as they swirled through my mind.
But they’re not really poems either – they’re somewhere between poems and lyrics – they’re pre-lyrics, I guess you could say. And from them I can cull material for my songs.
I’m about to embark on FAWM (“February Album Writing Month,” similar to NaNoWriMo, starting February 1st so I’ll be writing something to meet the “14 songs in 28 days” goals and not analyzing whether it’s a lyric or a poem.
Screamie Birds Studios 