How can I not write poetry, it seems, now that I know how? It’s like a hunger—I feel at a loss when I’m not churning out poems. I used to write poetry pretty much every day, and now I write when I have time to relax. Discovering writing has opened me up to many new experiences and a community that I believe will remain vital to me for as long as I write.

I value having friends who are poets because they understand where I'm coming from and encourage me to explore my work in greater depth. I adore reading my friends’ poetry because it inspires my own verse and style. I found a wonderful writing community and exchanging poems with friends has inspired me to edit and submit my poems to journals, and to be more confident in my writing. An important idea I learned from attending different writing programs is that there is no proper format to writing poetry. I’ve learned to let go of expectations.

I write to try and illustrate and mark down these events of my life. I write to fabricate and live experiences that I haven’t lived, and to paint a vivid image of the feelings I have felt. I look to display a range of emotion in my work along with specific images. I try to find a balance between striking images and direct statements about human nature.

Selected poems include: