Member-only story
No Fear Is Greater than That of Your Own Craft
How I’m facing my fear of poetry head-on
The moment I learned how to write, I started writing poetry. Poems just happen to me. They’re always forming in my head. But I had a years-long hiatus that scared me beyond words. I feared I would lose my craft. So I started to face my fear. And I’m now writing my third poetry collection.
It’s not that I was scared of poetry itself, but I was scared of the failure it might reflect. I’ve been a poet for as far as I can remember. I’ve written two collections and published my first one at 17. It was all smooth sailing until my second book deal fell through because the big, bad wolves of the literary scene in my home country decided I was too good, and progressing too quickly.
Not writing any poems for three years was gut-wrenching. But I simply couldn’t bring myself to get it right. Recently, however, I decided to take my worry, fear and self-doubt head-on. It was them or me. And I wanted to prevail.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the…
