During the Fall semester, in my Composition 101 class at Harrisburg Area Community College, one of my students turned in an essay full of inventive description and crafted metaphors. After reading her rough draft, I said, "You're a poet, aren't you?"
Alexandra Smarsh, my student and a local poet, wrote her first poem in third grade after 9/11 and mailed it to the President. After encouragement from her teacher, who told her to "never stop writing," Smarsh now writes for at least two minutes every day. She went to high school at Kennard Dale and online, and now, at age 18, is an English major at HACC. In the past year, she has also attended poetry workshops at Susquehanna University.
Many poems have emerged from her daily writing ritual, including "To My Classmate." Smarsh wrote this poem during an art history class, after hearing one of her classmates had been killed in a shooting.
To My Classmate
A smudge of lead hushes the page
more white than gray
it whispers to his knack of rhyme
but time grew weary beneath his feet
its hands slipping to silence his song
now they only hold the face of a clock
ticking to the beat of an empty chair
and we sit in class.
His mother’s face is damp with dusk
and we talk about Picasso
and Kandinsky
and the colors of sound.
During class, Smarsh had difficulty discussing paintings after hearing the tragic news. Describing her instinct to write as a "coping mechanism" at times, she penned this poem to express her emotions in this moment. Though her words came from a place of sadness, Smarsh has the tendency to pull light from darkness in her work. In this case, she uses synesthesia throughout her poem to paint her own version of this moment with words.
Writers add layers to a sensory experience by using synesthesia. For instance, in the first line of the poem, Smarsh writes, "A smudge of lead hushes the page." The dark color of "lead" does not make a sound, but Smarsh imagines how it would sound if it did. In her work, she often connects scents and colors to different sounds and likes to work in abstraction.
In her daily life, Smarsh stays attuned to the details around her and then feels compelled to record them in writing. She told me that she is "inspired easily," especially by moments that seem overwhelming emotionally. I echo her ideas because I live my best life when I pay attention to the minute details of my surroundings. Everything has the ability to make you feel or create meaning for you if your senses are active.
Smarsh's advice to writers is to mirror her practice of writing for two minutes a day. Sit down and time yourself. Though not every word may end up in a poem, something is sure to come from self-expression. Smarsh even shared that sometimes she does not fully understand how she feels about something until writing about it.
It took writing "Beneath Your Sky" for Smarsh to understand her feelings about an artist friend, who was headed down a destructive path. She said she wrote several pages, feeling like she was "screaming at him on paper," and then revised the poem to a page. The emotionally charged images that came from her writing are evidenced in the opening stanzas:
He exercises his soul’s strength
trying to get a stronger grip on truth;
something that’s never been given to him
so he searches for the word beautiful at the bottom.
He feeds easy money to a broken woman
and waits for happiness to fall
in the acidic raindrops dancing on his tongue
caressing his breath with the controversy
of fear and freedom.
He thirsts for peace, indulging himself
within his mind hoping to fill his cup with the
drippings of a trip he may never return from.
Though Smarsh inspires us to be aware with her words, she also inspires others with her ambitions. After attaining her Bachelor's degree, she would like to teach in Uganda with the organization Resource for Hope. She has always been attracted to African culture, and after learning about child soldiers, her mission in life involves helping children and war orphans in Uganda through education. Passionate about the power of writing, Smarsh feels called to share this gift with others and show them different ways writing can help us cope, as well as change our lives for the better.
If you would like to participate in upcoming local poetry events, please check out my blog or send me an email. I wish you all a happy and safe holiday season, full of lovely words and unexpected rhymes!
