by Robert “Bob” Bussey
“Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.”
― Thomas Aquinas
This month’s poet, Alecia Lewis, explained to me that she started writing poetry at an early age, then stopped for a considerable amount of time, and then started again around 4 or 5 years ago. To her poetry is about wonder, about imagining, about change and transformation. At times, when she starts to work on her poems, she goes into what she described as a dreamland. A process where she can be creative with her thoughts and words, a place of safety. She keeps a notebook, and voice messages on her cell phone, of ideas that seem to just “pop” into her head. Those ideas sometimes bear fruit and are incorporated into one of her poems or become the initial seed of a new poem. She uses that process so that she does not lose the ideas to the wind.
Her poems can be the result of actual life events, other poems she writes are more from the perspective of another person (written more in the third person). She tries to set aside some time each day, even if it is just 5 minutes to work on a poem or series of poems. Sometimes she will spend a whole day working on poetry. She wants to the productive. It was in 2020 or 2021, when she got to know the poets that make up the Bad Gnus Poets group (Beverly Easterling, David Atwood, Shelley Jinks Johnson, and Jim Clinton) that she began to pick poetry back up. The Bad Gnus Poets (or as I like to call them, the Bad Gnus Bears) would peek at what she had placed on paper, give her suggestions, and encourage her to continue on her poetic journey. I think that group, knowingly or unknowingly, has been important in reviving poetry in the Central Louisiana area. But I digress, so let’s get back to Alecia. She tries to write something every day. A hard task, since she, like so many other poets, has a full-time job doing something other than poetry. Regarding the actual writing of poems, Alecia has at times placed words on paper and said, “I’m done with that one!” But more often the poems go through a multiple editing process and do not become a finished product for days, weeks or even months.
She likes her poems to flow, but like so many of us has trouble presenting her poems in a spoken word fashion. Her poems range from humorous to dark poems, poems about transforming, poems swarming with emotion. She sees that
poetry can be part of a healing process for a person who has gone through a traumatic event, like a difficult breakup, a health issue, or the death of a loved one.
In one form or fashion, poetry often requires some form of inspiration, a “kick in the butt” type experience to get the wheels of the poet’s brain working and producing something that just might be enjoyed by the masses. Socrates seemed to already know this some back in 469-399 B.C. in the ancient Greek city of Athens when he roamed those city streets.
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
Socrates
Alecia gets her inspiration from personal events, from events taking place around her, and even from her experience with music. And that leads us to the first poem. This is inspired from an actual event of seeing and old flame, but not being
seeing by that flame and the relief of not being seen. I think many of us can relate.
Apathy of You
I received a ticket,
To your performance.
I had to see the monstrous absurdity,
For myself.
You droned cheap poetry,
Spewed excused cancellations,
With destroyed imagination
Laced with edited creativity.
Did you see me?
Was I recognized?
Did my presence disrupt your farce,
Causing your break in character?
Our once magical chemistry
Decayed into nostalgic oblivion.
I let the catatonic dream of you,
Fade into serene indifference.
Go back. Read it again. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel. A sense of relief? A sense of dread? A sense disgust? Perhaps all of those and even more are packed into that short poem.
Here are several other poems for you to digest and ponder. I will let you decide what the poet meant.
Failed Advocate
I wanted to help,
Believe me, I did.
My heart was in the right place,
I should have known better,
Than to allow my personal
Biases and traumas
To cloud my objectivity.
By saving you,
I hoped to avenge my losses,
And heal my wounds.
My therapy caused irreparable damage.
I should have disqualified myself,
Allowing a more qualified savior,
To provide healing and nurturing,
In ways that I could not.
Failing you,
Breaking you,
Destroying you,
Was not my intention,
But it happened.
My penance is to be haunted by you.
The next poem, written in 2024, that we discussed follows:
Awakened Metamorphosis
Blindfolded and bound,
Standing and surrounded by stoned steel,
That confines and traps.
Nothing but murkiness and chaos,
In this entangling maze.
Navigating the labyrinth of internal bindings
Freedom materializes with
Transformative power unmasked,
Exposing elevated evolution.
Connecting with cosmic cycles,
Honoring divine natural energies,
Intensifying with a blazing light,
Harnessing sacred disruptions,
Ushering in the awakening of enlightenment.
Stripping bare while,
Shedding the skin of the past,
I dance around the fire of the moon,
Expressing the raw and wild truth within.
Transcendent power at its finest.
I thought this might be Alecia explaining in detail how she was going through a metamorphosis process in her poetic writings. Perhaps written from a first person point of view about a series of events. The first stanza leaves the reader
with a “trapped feeling.” Something that happened to this person in the past. The other stanzas describe a transformation that was taking place, the future. However, instead of being written from a first-person perspective, it is written from a third
person perspective. No, Alecia did not dance naked around a fire. Instead, Alecia, as many poets do, takes on the persona of another person, almost as if she is an actor in a play. (And, by the way, Alecia has a long history of having part in plays being put on locally via the City Park Players and others). According to Alecia that poem is about “letting go, tapping into your own inner power, transcending and evolving.” A transformational poem written for most anyone who is finding new paths in life.
The next poem is short and is about an actual event, but not an event that happened to Alecia. Instead, this was written after she was told by a male friend about how his supposed girl friend jilted him, left him, but left him with an artifact. Alecia sums up in just two stanzas the emotion of the events. Take a look. Her friend transformed.
The Artifact
Upon my departure,
My love wanted an
Authentic, amazing artifact
Instead of some
Thoughtless, tacky trinket.
Upon my return,
My love decided to vanish.
I kept the artifact.
It is now part of
My persona.
For the last poem, we have a current one, written just this year. It’s a love poem. Not a grieving love poem, not a lost love poem, not a “I hate you now but loved you for so long” love poem. Nope, just a plain good old love poem. The kind that you can wrap yourself into, the kind where you can see new love blooming. The kind where you can take the metaphors and give them multiple meanings and perhaps even meanings that you might be able to relate to your own life. Poetry,
after all, takes both the poet and the reader to come to life.
The Plunge
Let’s do it.
Get out of our heads,
And into our hearts.
Ripping the bandage of hesitation,
Entering the portal leading
To the rabbit hole of us.
I’m not with him.
You’re not with her.
With no one else in the way,
And with perfect timing.
The path is clear.
With memories to be made,
We can stay in or
Walk in those gardens,
Tour the museums,
Attend the symphonies,
Go on vacation,
Drive around town,
Endless possibilities await us.
Taking a breath,
Letting go of uncertainty,
We dive in with
Cautioned excitement.
Surrendering to this magic.
I take your hand,
You pull me close.
Saying yes,
Our adventures begin.
Alecia can be found at most every Poetry reading at Tamp & Grind. She was also a featured poet via the LSUA Verbatim program during Poetry month in 2023.
Robert Bussey is a local attorney and poet who has resided in CENLA since 1986. He interviews other poets and then writes these articles to help promote poetry. You can reach him at Rlbussey450@icloud.com if you are a poet and would like to be interviewed.
