Abandoning the Dark Side<\/p>\n
“I stopped thinking about extreme grief as the sole vehicle for great art when the grief started to take people with it.\u201d \u2013 Hanif Abdurraqib<\/p>\n
Of grief, I have seen my share,
\nfor years it was the vehicle that drove my writing.
\nIn despair, I literally wrote the book,
\nthinking that was all of any worth I had to say.<\/p>\n
No one would want to read
\nanything less worthy,
\nanything homely, simple, uplifting
\nor kind. Would they?<\/p>\n
I hammered home with bludgeoning words
\nabuse as a child and an adult,
\nthe death of my baby, divorce,
\nand sickness in mind and body.<\/p>\n
Yet gradually, through love and time
\nnew writing began, new themes clarified
\nhope, life, and light, beacons in the dark,
\nwarmth, kindness, and home, always home.<\/p>\n
I discovered a stronger voice within,
\nthat dared to be happy,
\nthat refused to despair any longer,
\ninvited others to join, and to my shock, they did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abandoning the Dark Side “I stopped thinking about extreme grief as the sole vehicle for great art when the grief started to take people with it.\u201d \u2013 Hanif Abdurraqib Of grief, I have seen my share, for years it was the vehicle that drove my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99857,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99626\/revisions\/99857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}