Finding My Voice (By Sharon Flood Kasenberg)

My Voice:    (Sharon Flood Kasenberg - January '07)

Somewhere between my head and heart
it seems I've found my voice -
a way to express love and fear,
share sorrows and rejoice.
I'm attempting to find balance
between feelings and thought
as cool logic tempers passions
that tend to run too hot,
my heart softens the sharp edges
of reasonableness;
with efficacious empathy
I might find words to bless.
Can I use love and intellect -
avail myself of each;
use words to stir both heart and mind -
to nourish and to teach?
The same voice that always whispered
is dictating in rhyme
attempts to meld my brain and soul
in strictly metered time.
Though the cadence must be measured
I'll generously share
the contents of my head and heart
for readers to compare.
Can you discern where my thoughts end
and where my heart begins?
As each attempts to rule the day
my voice decides who wins.

When I first began to share these poetic musings I was afraid that nobody would care enough to read them. I felt exposed - tossing my thoughts and feelings off like sweaty laundry to stand naked. I worried that I was throwing the contents of my mind and heart into some void in cyberspace, to a faceless anonymous alien audience who might not ever respond.

I wondered whether this blogging experience would be encouraging or demoralizing. Initially it often felt like an exercise in futility, especially when my husband admitted that he didn't read my posts! I persevered, becoming more assertive by putting each new post on his Facebook wall where he was bound to see it (eventually). I also began to send out posts to friends, thinking that some of them might be curious enough about what I had to say to click on the link. I want to thank each of you who have taken a few moments here and there to read and offer comments and encouragement. (You'll never know how much it thrills me when you tell me you enjoy what I write, much less tell me I should post more often!)

Blogspot allows me to see how many people have viewed each post, and while my ego isn't healthy enough to allow me to credit every person who stumbles upon this blog with actually reading it, I am gratified to know my posts are at least seen. But I'm grounded enough to know that the numbers will never be true indicators of how well I "vocalize".

I've always written, but until seven years ago almost every word I wrote was for my eyes only. (Except for the play I wrote and directed in grade two, and any diary entries that I thought had enough comedic value to read to friends.)  My "Rhyming Muse" has made me more confident about sharing verse and prose. Rhyme snobs still exist (they always will), but I think I've been able to show a few people that complicated ideas can be conveyed in simple rhyming couplets. I believe that demonstrating literary acumen shouldn't require complicated sentence structures and a dictionary for translation. In my opinion, good writing is easy enough to understand, but sufficiently complex to make you ponder.

It took many years of searching before I found a voice and the courage to speak up. Some will listen, others will ignore what I have to say. What is important to me is that I continue to speak regardless of who hears, and that some who hear will respond.

If what I write ever makes you smile - if it makes you think or want to exercise your own creativity then I have succeeded. My satisfaction doesn't depend on how much my poems are seen. I care more about whether my efforts have affected those who have read them. When you turn my "vocalizing" into a conversation or a thought to ponder I have no doubt that my voice is being heard.

Poetic Justice:    (Sharon Flood Kasenberg - September '07)

If chaos in my mind intrudes,
corrupting calm and peaceful moods
I find a haven writing verse -
it helps the threatening clouds disperse.
Perhaps it is my therapy -
for through combining words I see
solutions in what I create
and weakness when I hesitate.
When my fragmented thoughts cohere
so that on paper words appear
it seems forces beyond this earth
took fetal thoughts and gave them birth.
Completed lines leave me consoled -
but only rarely I behold
poetic justice meted out
when in my verse I have no doubt.