Tag: poetry

How To Get Comfortable Performing Your Poetry 

by sarahbellummental

I remember when I first started performing poetry as a teenager. It was intimidating but the best kind of exciting. I compare public speaking to the best adrenaline experience and high that is legal. I’m not a center of attention type of person, but I’ve always gotten joy and such a challenge from speaking my words in front of people.

I figured this part of myself out in Speech class back in college. Everyone hated it except for me. I took it as a challenge, and it was an evolution to get better each time. My hands shook when I brought my outline up with them. I secretly whispered to myself one of these days. We’re going to have our stuff memorized.

Memorizing is easy and difficult for me. Performing just comes with whatever poem I’m speaking. I remember what brought this poem into life. I remember its creation and the feelings I had surrounding it. Then, I let the lightning strike, don’t deny them, and go full breath into the poem.

The problem is that I have a low threshold for stimuli. I get overstimulated easily. Noises, music, and anything can make my mind focus on that instead of what I would say next.

I’ve always found ease with telling stories versus poetry.

Stories I know like my backhand and the lines in my palm.

Poems are structured to carry rhythm, rhyme, syntax, alliteration that if I miss just one word, the whole structure is thrown off balance.

So, how do you get comfortable performing?

Like anything, repetition, repeat, and repeat until it becomes a second tongue you wear. I have to see the poem, index cards go into the visual, hear the poem, and combine holding the poem too (kinesthetic) to get it to solidify.

When I recite a poem from memory, I can see it in my head like my finger is moving down its length. But, this works best in a quiet environment. So, I’ve started practicing outdoors on walks, in my car, and in other places where I can’t control the setting.

I love when people start reading and then move to perform their poems. There’s such power in hearing your words out loud. If you trip up, don’t go back and fix the word. Move forward. People will forget the slip-up, and it also works to keep your confidence up. Everyone messes up. It’s how you recover from the stumble that defines you.

Poetry Proves My Power 

by sarahbellummental

I saw a post where they were asking you your mantra that you live by now to kind of rewrite things. My response was longer, “I will use poetry to bring back my power.” Shortened version of this is “Poetry Proves My Power.” What does that mean?

It means that poetry is used to access kindness. Is used to not exactly rewrite narratives but to write them in a way that I feel it all over again. And just the act of being present in it and bringing others along for the ride if I do share it performing is just part of a power dynamic being brought back to me.

I’ve always been that odd dock. Weed in a bouquet of flowers. I am that one that you meet and people immediately go, “you don’t care what people think, do you?”

I like to wear my joy on the outside.

I love nature like it can love me back.

I keep seeing things that if I’m not careful I’ll overlook.

The crazy amount of bees on goldenrod when they bloom. Hundreds of them. Then I think of maybe I can grow these and help the bees?

My mind is list of connections that connect perfectly because the world is interconnected.

It’s ridiculous all this beauty out there. So, I write because even the mundane can be exponentially mind blowing.

Some information on my workshops and projects: 

Talking about the Mental Highway, I do have a workshop with WAN Academy on June 6th doing just that. Writers, non-writers, poets, people who don’t call themselves poets but are pretty adept at words are all invited. To buy tickets for that is this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wan-academy-tapping-into-your-poetic-mental-highway-w-sarah-bellum-mental-tickets-254927183067?aff=sbm

If you share that link with others, I get a commission for tickets sold, and this does help me out. Also, if you’re a WAN Poetry member, sit easy and know that it’s free.

Catalysts is back! We are doing Tuesdays instead of Thursdays at 6pm CST. Sign up is:  https://sarahbellummental.com/poeticworkshops/

And a workshop I’m excited about to offer is an Erotica Workshop, Touch The Poetic Pulse, Friday, February 11th, at 6:30pm CST. Sign up is: https://sarahbellummental.com/touch-poetic-pulse-workshop/

My books are still available if you’d like to take them home with you. Poetically word-wise, of course. Every bit helps, and I will do nice shit for you to send with your book and goodies. 

How I’m Doing Things In Poetry I’d Never Imagine Myself Doing

by sarahbellummental

You probably have seen this as my new flier at the top of the page. I took a dare and submitted myself to be a teacher in the upcoming WAN Academy. I remember the founder of Write About Now Poetry telling me that they needed a class on how I write so many poems in a day. I am currently at over 200 poems for the year of 2022.

Now, with this said, I do take days off writing. Sometimes, my brain isn’t cooperative. I’ve been writing more short stories and essays than I have done for years. Short story writing activates a different brain than poetry. All my start of lines and such get thrown out the window. I am making a story, talking in my head, doing it as if someone is right in front of me and I’m having a conversation with them.

It’s great, but if I do something like chapters for a Novel, or short stories, I lose my ability for poetry. It may still be there, but it’s less prevalent. I’m activating a different side, the conversations and story building I’m having while I’m on a walk versus an image of a flower becoming a metaphor for depression of how some flowers flourish in winter.

My brain likes connections. It connects everything in life. I am that person who bounces between twenty different things and to me they are all connected. While I’m flourishing with this, I might lose someone who it’s like hey, let’s keep this linear?

When I made this workshop I decided to share some of the things with how I can make three poems out of one. I never really thought I’d be teaching not just with my home base of WAN, but with Guerilla Poets which is a North Carolina non-profit organization that uses poetry and art to heal.

Everything I’ve done this year is because I’ve stopped saying is this good enough and I’ve told myself, yes, it is.

I’m also here to tell you that if you call yourself a writer, or a poet, then you are. There is no gatekeeping here. There is no amount of writing in a week that makes you become a writer or poet. I believe poetry is in us all. All we gotta do is access it and believe in our words to tell stories that our a part of our legacy. We need to never lose our ability to story tell. This is how my great grandma still lives in me is her amazing stories she’d tell me. I will never forget the joy she had telling them. I will never forget the everlasting love she had for her daughter, my grandma, in these stories.

And now I get to tell them in my language, my voice, to keep them living beyond me.

IF A Poem Takes Over What Do You Do?

by sarahbellummental

Today we go over the poem taking over your body/brain system. Activating fight or flight, if a poem takes over you, what do you do? You might see some things repeated, like my classes coming up, that will stop being mentioned as they cycle through being done. When a poem starts to run off with you I had one piece of advice: stop.

I know, it sounds counter-intuitive right? If you’re having a visceral reaction it must be good? But, if your body is starting the process of shutting down, and going into fight or flight mode, your writing will eventually turn off as well. It’s not worth making a poem to put your body in crisis mode at a perceived mental threat.

Breathe. Drink tea and do what you need to to come back to your body. Engage all five senses, what do you see/hear/what is around you right now? Take inventory of the body’s system. Reconnect and come back when it’s run through you. Maybe shelve that until the intensity calms down.

Some information on my workshops and projects: 

Talking about the Mental Highway, I do have a workshop with WAN Academy on June 6th doing just that. Writers, non-writers, poets, people who don’t call themselves poets but are pretty adept at words are all invited. To buy tickets for that is this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wan-academy-tapping-into-your-poetic-mental-highway-w-sarah-bellum-mental-tickets-254927183067?aff=sbm

If you share that link with others, I get a commission for tickets sold, and this does help me out. Also, if you’re a WAN Poetry member, sit easy and know that it’s free. 

Also, I am a Guerilla Poet member, and I got free virtual workshops with them. My next one is on February 3rd, Thursday at 6 pm CST, and we will be doing Part II of Compassion Clarity and Poetic Craft. I am working on two workshops with them on Friday and Saturday for a safe space for survivors workshops. 

These workshops are called “Surviving Speaks Poetry Part I and Part II.” The dates for this two day workshop are February 18th and 19th @ 6pm CST. I wanted to provide these safe spaces to talk in community. Sign up is on their page.

My books are still available if you’d like to take them home with you. Poetically word-wise, of course. Every bit helps, and I will do nice shit for you to send with your book and goodies. 

I got Trigger Warning with Bloodmoon Poetry, an anthology for survivors that I’m published in— “Honey Pot,” which is one-minute slam poetry I competed within Slam Mania III. The proceeds from selling the book go to a survivors’ network so that you will be supporting a good cause with it. I bought my copy and it’ll be here soon, but if you want to buy a copy for yourself click here. The funds from buying copies will help with a Survivors Network that they are partnering with so it goes to a good cause.

I also got an anthology with Guerilla Poets coming out soon and another anthology, Good Looks, I’ll be a part of. 

The March shop is live! Ah! https://sarahbellummental.com/merch/ I’m so jazzed and also nervous? Here’s the link. I love the poems turned into shirts. We’ll be having more. I offer too—just the beginning. Also, my logo image that Shane Mainer made for me is one of the creators of Guerilla Poets. 

To all those who hear me, thank you. To all those struggling with kindness or self-compassion for yourself, I see you, I am you, but I know you’re magnificent. Be kind always to your mind. 

My Writing Process and Projects

by sarahbellummental

I get asked a lot about my writing process, and this question always makes me tilt my head. Process? 

The process sounds like tap, tap, tap at the keyboard while they smile at me. My process looks like banishing my inner critic. It looks like free writing, then Grammarly as my editing process, then reading out loud for hitches. My process looks like poetic possession.

What is the mental highway, you ask? That’s connecting to my inspiration. Sometimes, I’m not going to lie. She is difficult. She doesn’t want to work with me. When that happens, I use poetry prompts. You can use poetry prompts at all times you like to. I like to use the exact prompt three times and write three very different poems from one source of information. 

Some information on my workshops and projects: 

Talking about the Mental Highway, I do have a workshop with WAN Academy on June 6th doing just that. Writers, non-writers, poets, people who don’t call themselves poets but are pretty adept at words are all invited. To buy tickets for that is this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wan-academy-tapping-into-your-poetic-mental-highway-w-sarah-bellum-mental-tickets-254927183067?aff=sbm

If you share that link with others, I get a commission for tickets sold, and this does help me out. Also, if you’re a WAN Poetry member, sit easy and know that it’s free. 


Guerilla Poets Next Workshop, February 3rd, Self Compassion II

Also, I am a Guerilla Poet member, and I got free virtual workshops with them. My next one is in February 3rd, Thursday 6pm CST, and we will be doing Part II of Compassion Clarity and Poetic Craft. I am working on two workshops with them on Friday and Saturday for a safe space for survivors workshops. You can be a non-writer and just come to be in a group. You can write if you want, or write later if it comes to you. Sign up on their page to join us.

I have a Newsletter you can sign up for, Poetically Powered! Click here and it will be more in-depth information and a little behind the screen of things.

Haunted Poets, November 20th

by sarahbellummental

I always love the metaphor of poets being haunted. How can we not? We’re always dredging up ghosts and making them home inside ourselves. Our hallways are haunted, our heads are haunted, are fingers are just waiting to express a haunting.

I wanted to time this workshop with Halloween but missed the cutoff for its creation so we shot for November. I want to kind of dive into what is it that you hold onto? How can you persuade it to come out poetically?

I’ve had so much fun with my workshops, with Poetic Catalyst, and my poets who make space, create space, take space for us to inspire and be inspired. It’s a lot of love, fun, learning, creating, and it just makes me so joyful to have us creating in the same space.

I’m thinking and planning eventually to maybe have some in-person workshops, but this is down the line. It would yet again be probably sliding scale, and maybe even where instead of us writing right away we explore something, then find a place to sit and make things. Or, we explore and then I leave you with a small booklet of prompts to write out your poems in, hand-held, at any time.

I’m already thinking if we will keep Haunted Poets next month or if I’ll explore a different topic for us to do and get together to go through on the weekend.

If you’re curious, and interested, just click here to find out and sign up.

How Do You Say I Miss You To Your Molester?

by sarahbellummental
This isn’t where I’m at today

I don’t even know how to handle writing this post. But it’s something that I can’t seem to get out of. I saw a movie of mine that is the closest a movie has gotten to my family. They are dysfunctional, fucked up, and the grandfather is the closest to my grandfather.

Manipulative, cruel, messed up, very few glimmers of goodness. Besides, him trying at the end to reconcile. And that leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it makes me miss that. We never did that. He knew for two years he would die and instead of getting better, like Royal in the movie, he just got worse.

So much worse.

I find my poetry going back to scenarios I hate. Going back to questions I don’t want. Like the sickness I feel for my favorite grandparent being the man who molested me most of my life. Starting at a very young age, until he died with my family taking care of him 24/7 as caregivers in our home.

I was nursemaid to my molester.

Chew on that for awhile.

I try not to go too deep into my life. I don’t know whether this blog should work as a journal, just an update to follow me on my author journey and poetic journey, or if this is a megaphone to scream out listen to your children!

I guess today it’s that question lying heavy on me. As well as some news kind of rocking my world in a really, really terrible way. I look so normal on the outside when all this shit happens. I get panic attacks, anxiety, depression, and a hormonal syndrome that boosts my suicidal issues and depression and anxiety and puts mental health in a pot.

I get asked a lot why am I an advocate for mental health?

My grandma tried to kill herself so many times.

My other grandma was put through electro shock for severe depression before my mother was born and lost huge amounts of her memory from that.

And all this is hardly even spoken about? Why? Mental health just means buck up. Batten down. Be better. Put your big britches on.

Bullshit.

Sometimes the best thing you can ever do in this world is just say I’m not okay. Today, I’m near not okay. I reached out to a dear friend and aired out some fears. They said what I know but what anxiety, fear, and being overwhelmed won’t listen to. I need to take care of myself. And so here I am, knowing the way, but not knowing how to stop shaking.

1-7-21 The Poetry Stream Feature

by sarahbellummental

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/865164047

It went down for my feature and it was the most amazing thing.

Today is End The Stigma with Guerilla Poets and the poet heading the workshop is my dear friend, Ma Dukes.

Our focus was the zones we stay within, comfort, learning, fear, and growth.

The prompts didn’t seem to do anything for me at first. I was frustrated as shit. It felt like poetic spin cycle on my laundry. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Me.

Then, I guess, they did a lot for me.

I’ll be exploring each one deeper but prompts are generally automatic with me and this wasn’t and felt like a struggle. But the poets were blown away with my poems so I guess they were stronger than my thoughts.

This goes to say: poets do not believe your words are less than just because you’re frustrated with what you wrote. Bounce it off open and objective ears and get feedback. You may have better than you imagined in that poetic pile and you should be proud you just created.

You’re a creator. That is amazing in itself, go out there, make worlds, make trauma visible, realize your feelings are valid and your words are just as valid.

Everyone needs to hear what you say. And if they don’t connect? They’ll find their tribe. And when you find your tribe? Welcome them in, love them, share the love, and be inspired.

Defending Against A Loaded Gun

by sarahbellummental

I woke up thinking about what happened yesterday. I thought of race and how it is a constant within a system that’s broken and needs to be corrected. I thought about the blatant racism my boyfriend deals with every day and the fear I try to quell of losing him because of his skin color.

I thought of my friends and them coaching their black sons to be small, shrink in size, if they are approached by cops to save their lives. Always show your hands to them. Always.

I think of the racism and looks we may deal with because we are a biracial couple. And, the fact that our children would have to face what is going on as well. The conversations. The quiet killing happening daily, and the loud gunshots we hear and don’t hear around this country. Constantly happening.

I thought of how to word this. To word the pain. And I did it, but I feel like it’s never enough. And when I explain this to him he just says to keep at it. Keep doing what I’m doing.

I wrote it in a poem that I posted and that I expanded into a performance piece. I feel like all of my Racial Injustice poems could be stronger. I always feel like I’m not doing enough. I need to do more. This voice is important and there’s so many things I want it to scream from the rafters we need to talk about.

Race. Mental health matters. Black lives matter. Suicide. Molestation. Sexual Assault. Rape. Rape in marriage. Rape by family members. Your child’s voice matters. Predators are normally a part of your structure already. Anxiety. Depression. Gay rights.

I was asked by a friend with my second feature with the Word Is Write whether there are any poems I ever write I don’t like? I said no. I’m thinking, I love all my poems, but my poems on race, on what he’s faced, on my fear of losing him, could always be stronger. My voice just doesn’t seem strong enough to make a difference in my mind.

Tonight is my feature with The Poetry Stream and I’m excited for it. I’m excited for a new day despite all the bullshit there is. I’m excited about life. I’m excited about love. I’m overjoyed I have it in my life and it is a wonderfully amazing human being who gets me 100%. Plus. I am grateful for his family I adore, and are hilarious, and amazing human beings on this planet.

If you want to join in my feature with The Poetry Stream the link is: www.twich.com/sc_says

I would be beyond grateful to have you with me. To all those I love I am so damn grateful for love.

Trigger Finger Suicide

by sarahbellummental

JANUARY 6TH, 2021 POST

Topic For Today? Trigger Finger Suicide. What is the bullet on your tongue? What is the trigger you finger in your head?

Welcome to updates about me day by day! (ish) I never like to keep communication too consistent but since this is my author site, figure you guys getting a look in my brain is good?

I wrote a poem that unloaded some deep trauma I’ve never talked about.

It’s weird how it ticked 2021 and all this stuff wanted to get unloaded.

It’s called “Trigger Finger Suicide” so the title itself gives you a good idea of the mental space. Molestation, suicide survival, assault inside of it and some experiences I’m just starting to go back to and unload poetically.

One of the things I enjoy the most about poetry is I get to speak through metaphors real, life experiences that I’ve never shared. Then, people don’t ask me what happened. Because honestly? Lots of times I would shutdown if you asked me what spurred it. It’s in the poem and I don’t like to go into the details, the details are in the poem.

I live with trauma daily. Trying to pick apart living on eggshells being broken by my mere steps forward. So, that trauma can be accessed through poems but when I explain them it’s like I’ve already conquered the situations. But, I haven’t. Just because I’ve written something thousands of times doesn’t mean it gets smaller each time it’s written.

Sometimes, and most of the time, it gets bigger. And it looks like it might crush me by revisiting it. But, I know, if I can help with explaining it and my experiences, it’s worth it.