POEM OF CLARITY POEM AND VERTIGO STILLNESS

Read it here (click on link for poem).
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I started the process of writing this poem by thinking of clear, straightforward statements that pertain to me and/or are specific to who I am (see the statements below). Once I had listed one statement for every year I’ve been alive, I started moving sections of the sentences around. After my rational context was broken, I re-read each sentence and tried to find a way to make each contain a different kind of sense. When I wrote my initial list I found that one statement would inform the next, so in order to wipe out any and all forms of my own sense that might have made it through in the beginning phases of surgery, I rearranged the lines multiple times. I decided to break them up into stanzas because the groupings of broken context created a more interesting context than did the listing of lines.

Although this poem is broken and all over the place I find it extremely beautiful and telling, especially of whom I am as an individual. I love what happens between the title (that I made via the same process that the lines went through) and the first line. I feel like that sets the tone of the poem right away as one that is connected and flowing between its parts. I also really like the last line. It communicates that feeling when your head is too full in a way that resembles the actual experience… I also just really like the way it reads. The music in that line is the strongest out of the whole piece to my ear.

1. Music directly affects my mood.
2. I keep an overhead pen in my bathroom drawer because some of my best ideas happen in
the shower. I write them on my mirror.
3. Most everything smells better after it’s rained.
4. If I can’t have a serious conversation with you, I’ll question why I talk to you in the first
place.
5. Standing on top of a mountain is a freeing experience and yet it leaves me feeling lonely.
6. Feelings will always be a part of life but they don’t determine meaning.
7. Throughout my week, I eat two different meals for breakfast. That’s what I call variety.
8. Give yourself a uniform. It will cut down the amount of time you spend getting ready.
9. Smiling at yourself in the mirror doesn’t mean you’re happy.
10. The sound of rain makes me genuinely happy.
11. There are some songs that have to be listened to at an uncomfortably loud volume to be
fully appreciated.
12. Some pain is addictive.
13. No matter how much I love to write, writing will never compare to talking face to face
with another being.
14. Talking to yourself helps you know what you’re thinking.
15. My friend was killed when I was in seventh grade.
16. High school was confusing.
17. If I could clear out all the song lyrics and movie quotes that I have in my head, I would
have much more room in there.
18. Left field isn’t always as surprising as they make it out to be.
19. Being told that you’re beautiful doesn’t mean you believe it.

*****

Kerrie Houle is a writer and visual artist currently living in Ohio and attending the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

poem

October 4, 2010

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