Dear Reader,

 

I am not a poet.

Yet, the years I spent at the College of Charleston coddled my talents and allow me to say now that I can write poetry successfully. As a creative writing concentrator, I was required to choose between fiction and poetry. I chose fiction and I am not regretful. That experience has led me to discover a passion for the novel form. However, experience was a requirement and thus I had to take a course in poetry. I loathed it. I vowed to never take a poetry class again, but my senior year snuck up on me and circumstances forced me to take Poetry II.

This second collection is comprised of the works I did in that second course.

I began with the same mindset I did in all my other creative writing courses: to write a series of stories that connected in some way either through theme, narrative, or symbolism. So, I wrote “The Troll of Trepidation,” believing I could write a series of poems based around children’s fantasy creatures. At the time, however, emotions were peaking. Graduation was fast approaching and my future was uncertain. My applications to graduate school had not yet been answered, so for much of the semester, I was racked with anxiety—with trepidation (see what I did there). Unbeknownst to me, my emotional state injected itself into the troll and then took its own path that I did not see coming. Needless to say, I did not write that collection of fantasy creatures.

           I will be honest, reader, I’m not a fan of modern poetry, specifically free verse poetry. I find it hard to justify. If you can do anything without form or restriction in your poetry, what makes it poetry? What makes it challenging? What makes it special? I understand that not everyone thinks this way and I accept that. Yet, as Richard Hugo said in Triggering Town, “the important arguments are with yourself.” My argument—one I struggled with throughout both poetry courses—was to hold true to my opinion while simultaneously finding a balance between the old and new concepts of poetry so that I made a decent grade. Thus, I ditched the monster approach and considered approaching poetry the same way I wrote my fiction stories. This wasn’t with clichéd metaphors or archaic speech, but with sentiment and true belief.

Carefully articulating the musicality of the lines, I allowed my words to flow without restriction. This is how I blended the new with the old. Instead of spending my time focusing on the importance of words, I investigated the importance of structure; how each line needed to effortlessly flow like lyrics to a song. This removed the need for narrative and enhanced the sound.

           Then, Covid-19 came. 

           While the pandemic did not affect writing poetry, what Covid truly did was give me time to find myself as a writer. I didn’t write any more poems for class, but I started working on my novel again. And, because of what this class taught me, I was able to finish a completed draft of THE HEART OF STONE.

           There’s something unique about conversing in asynchronous dialogue that forces you to get all your ideas down at once and in a way that everyone understands you. It reveals the real truth of what critics think without interruption. Quarantine, though it took away many things, it forced me to find my voice through my written words—thus the title "Verbum Vincet" or the word will conquer. I hope you enjoy this collection.

 

Sincerely,

Andy Rivers