“A poem begins as a lump on the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."
Robert Frost, in a letter to a letter to Louis Untermeyer, dated 1 January 1916, from The Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer
i was used to carrying around a lump in my throat. often, i felt a voice rise up inside of me only to get stuck on the way out, jammed against fleshy walls. everything i felt crawled out of the shadows of the unsayable and everything i felt died there too. i'd try to breathe around the lump in my throat, instinctively using my 12 years of meditation practice. deep, mindful breaths. only the lump wouldn't budge. i'd turn to affirmations next: i am safe. i am calm. i choose to be here now.
but i remained locked in the arms of my silence. i began to borrow sound from others. i would go word collecting, i'd stop and sample a beautiful arrangement of letters and sounds. iridescent. ephemeral. rotund.
the words led to poetry the same way breadcrumbs lead home. i felt myself getting closer to my true self. eventually, i got braver: i wanted to taste the poems so i dropped the borrowed words into my mouth until they lived inside my head like a memory and then i recorded myself reciting them.
i practiced those words like a habit, practiced them until they settled into my skin. the lump in my throat finally slid out with my breath as the poetry floated out of me. i recited the words like i was recounting my own thoughts, finally giving shape to all the unsayable things living on the underside of my rib cage.
i hadn't found the word evocation yet but that's the practice i was building.
evocation is the act of bringing a strong feeling, memory, image, or idea to the conscious mind. it doesn’t have to take the form of a poem but that is naturally where i lean.
if you’re interested in downloading an original evocation for cancer season to use, check out my offering below.
rooting for you,
xjj
