Latest / Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess / Poetry Saved My Life | Episode #339

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Poetry Saved My Life | Episode #339 · Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess

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Hello, and welcome to today's show, Legacy Living, Make your Life Account.
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I'm your host, Doctor Gloria. Gloria Burgess, passionate inspirational speaker,
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author, poet, and entrepreneur. Welcome to Legacy Living, Make your Life
0:42
Count. I'm delighted that you joined me today. I want to give a
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big thank you to those of you who are listening, and here's a great
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big shout out to all of you listening around the world. I'm delighted and
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so grateful that you tuned in. Your hope you're enjoying a fabulous day today
1:03
and that you're having a fantastic week, because you know what, in the
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grand song of the universe, life is very very short. It's short and
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oh so sweet and precious. So I hope you're making a difference in your
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own life, because when you do, you also make a difference in someone
1:26
else's life. A lot of folks want to make their life count for something,
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and they ask me, Doctor Gloria, how do you do that.
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Well, it's simple, it's very simple. You make your life count,
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day by day, step by step, moment by moment, every single day.
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Three sixty five twenty four seven. That's what legacy living, Make your
1:57
Life Count is all about. You can learn more about legacy living Make your
2:04
Life Count by visiting the Gloria Burgess website. That's g l o r I
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A b as in boy u r g e ss dot com. The Gloria
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Burgess website again, that's g l O r I A b as in boy
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you rg e ss dot com, or by visiting Facebook and you can find
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me on Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward slash d r g l O
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r I A b u r g e s s p h D forward slash.
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Okay, all right, today I want to talk with you about the
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power of a poem. That's right, the power of a poem. Can
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I just tell you something? This is going to be a great show today.
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You don't want to miss a single word. So grab your earbuds,
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put on your walking shoes, or find yourself a comfortable chair, make yourself
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a nice cup of tea or coffee, or pour yourself a nice cool glass
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of water. We're going to have a great time. Now. Before I
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jump into today's topic, I want to take a moment to welcome you.
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If you're just joining us, I'm your host, Doctor Gloria and this is
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legacy living Make your life count. I'd like to extend a special welcome to
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those of you who are joining my podcast, or if you're joining Talk Network
3:47
Radio for the very first time, You're in for a real treat. I'm
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excited to have you listening in today, and I'm deeply honored that you've allowed
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me to be part of your so you can be inspired by the ideas and
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resources to make your life count. Today's podcast is all about the power of
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a poem. Now what do I mean by that? Does a poem really
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have power? Well, of course it does. Inside the words, inside
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the rhythms, inside the music of poems. Inside that's where the power resides.
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Poems offer us so much. They can be a bridge, the kind
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of bridge that transports you from wherever you are into another place altogether, a
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bridge that opens you to a new understanding of who you are and you're calling
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in the world. A poem can be a bridge that connects us one heart
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to another, that connects us across countries and across cultures and our own self
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imposed constraints. Poems also have the power to help us bridge our internal world
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with the external world. David White, one of my favorite poets talks about
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this power in this way, He says, the poet lives and writes at
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the frontier, the frontier between deep internal experience and the revelations of the outer
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world. There is no going back. Once this frontier has been reached,
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a new territory is visible, and what has said cannot be unsaid. Poetry,
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he says, is a break for freedom. I just love that now
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when you think about it. Poems are also said to be dangerous. Now
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why is that? Because a good poem is like a dare. A good
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poem dares us to hit the pause button. That's right now. In today's
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fast paced world, where speed is valued in time is money, poetry invites
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us to slow down, to pause, to walk, not run, to
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pay attention, to not give in to the inauthentic and the superficial. A
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good poem dares us to see through the eyes of another, to walk a
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few steps or maybe even a few miles, in someone else's shoes, in
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someone else's experience. A good poem dares us to love what is unlovely,
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love what is forsaken or forgotten, or maybe even turning the mirror towards ourselves.
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You know sometimes we feel a little unlovely, forsaken and forgotten to A
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good poem dares us to not only love, but also to feel pain and
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loss and grief and loneliness. It dares us to let go of our strategic
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mind and to embrace the personal, the intimate, the necessary darkness and bleakness
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in our own and others lives. You know what, A good poem dares
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us to be transformed. Now, if you like me, you really enjoy
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poetry, even if you don't really know why. And sometimes it's not important
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to know why. It's just important to enjoy the words, the rhythms,
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the music. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the purpose of
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poetry, or more accurately, let's talk about the purposes, because poetry has
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many, many purposes, many many uses. So I want to begin by
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asking what difference? What difference can a poem make? Now that's a great
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question, isn't it? What difference can a poem make? For me?
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I can tell you that, without a shadow of a doubt, poetry has
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made a difference in my life. I know. I know a lot of
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folks say that, don't they. Why do I say it? Well,
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poetry made a difference in my life, but not just any kind of difference.
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It made a significant difference in my life. In fact, it would
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be accurate to say that poetry actually saved my life. That's right, now,
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How did that happen? Well, Poetry helped me connect the dots between
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my lived experience as a little black girl who was born in the rural south
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of the United States, someone who grew up surrounded by many, many people
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in what I call my personal village now. When I was a little girl,
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I looked daily into the face of my elders, all the elders in
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my personal village, who looked just like me, only older. Right,
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They had eyes like mine, and lips like mine, and cheeks and hair
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like mine. Poetry was there for me when my family moved from my personal
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village from the deep South to the urban North, when I left that world
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of familiar faces and my personal village, when I left behind all the people
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who loved me, who cared for me, who wanted me. When I
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moved from that world of belonging into this new and unfamiliar world, Poetry was
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that bridge for me. It actually helped me connect the dots between what I
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had known, and what was so new, so new and unfamiliar to me.
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You see, in this new world, I suddenly found myself surrounded by
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a sea of white faces in my neighborhood, at the grocery store, at
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school. When this was a totally new experience for me, it was what
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we call a coult shock. Only I didn't really even know what that meant
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back then. I mean, I had no language for what I was going
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through, no language for this new, very uncomfortable, unfamiliar world. But
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even though I didn't have language for it, I knew inside how I felt.
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And my feelings ranged from feeling scared and alone and out of place.
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They ranged from fear to sadness, sometimes from feeling afraid and lost to feelings
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of confusion and even anger. I didn't even know what I was angry about
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or who I was angry at. I just knew that I felt so alone.
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I felt like I didn't fit in. I felt like I didn't belong
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I felt like no one outside of my family really cared for me. Now,
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as a ten year old, I didn't have the words that I now
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have as an adult, But what I did have was this sense of dread
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the sense of lingering, doubt, of fear, of sadness, of insecurity,
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and feeling so so so alone. I knew that I was unanchored,
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adrift, and I felt as though I was thinking in this huge ocean that
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was way, way, way bigger than me. Again, without having all
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of those words for what I was going through at that time in my life,
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I felt that whatever was going on was way bigger than little old me,
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but I was powerless to do anything about it. I also knew that
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poems provided me with something to hold on to and away to hold on.
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I also had an incredible experience that's changed everything. That's the experience that saved
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my life. I remember that moment in my life as if it happened just
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yesterday. I remember being in the sixth grade and my teacher, her name
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was Mary Jane Gillespie. My classmates and I called her Miss g I remember
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one day, a day that started out like so many other days during recess.
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I was sitting inside while all the other kids were outside playing and enjoying
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themselves, playing tether ball or four square, or tag or soccer, or
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just hanging out together and laughing and talking. And I was sitting inside the
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room with my head down on my desk, having my own private, little
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pity party. Right now, what was I doing. I was feeling alone
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and I was feeling sorry for myself. Now, when I was in grade
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school, the teachers still wore dresses or skirts, and they also wore high
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heels. They wore pumps. Okay, that was back in the day,
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right, So, this particular day, I was sitting in my classroom during
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recess. I had my head down on my desk and then I remember hearing
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that click, click, click click of high heels, and I knew right
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away it was Miss G. By the sound of the clicks. Her footsteps
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got closer and closer to my desk, and then they just stopped. I
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remember hearing this little plunk of a sound and feeling a little gust of cool
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air as she put something on my desk beside my head. Then I heard
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the click, click click of her heels as she walked away and out of
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the broom. As soon as I knew it was all clear, I popped
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my head up to see what Miss G had put on my desk. I
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was surprised to find that she had put a little book on my desk.
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Now Miss g knew how much I loved to read, and she knew how
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much I loved poetry, and guess what, she had put a little book
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of poems on my desk. As I looked through it, I realized this
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was no ordinary book of poems. This was a book of poems by my
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favorite poet, Langston Hughes. The book was called The dream Keeper. I
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opened that little blue book and I just fell in love. Now why because
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this was the first time, inside of a classroom that I had held a
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book of poems or any other book that had pictures in it. Pictures of
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people who looked like me, people who had eyes like mine and lips like
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mine, people who looked out at me with love in their eyes, just
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like my mama and my daddy, just like the elders in my personal village.
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When I read the words, they had that swing and sway, They
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had the music and the rhythm. They had a dance like feeling that spoke
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to my heart and my soul. The words actually had the same kind of
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cadence of the words I heard at home and in my neighborhood and at church.
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Mercy. Now David White, the poet that I mentioned earlier, says
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there's no place like the house of belonging. We're gonna say that again.
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There is no place like the house of belonging. Can I just tell you
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something? He is absolutely right. This little blue book of poems called The
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dream Keeper was my house. It will filled with peeps from my family,
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peeps from my personal village, my village of belonging. What difference can a
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poem make? Here's the difference. Miss g thought she had given me a
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book of poems. But what she really gave me was a long drink of
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water for my withered little soul. What she really gave me was a lifeline,
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a lifeline to hold onto. As I was swirling around and around in
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that big old sea of self doubt, as I was sinking in the sea
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of loneliness, she gave me a healthy dose of oxygen, a special kind
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of CPR that saved my life. What difference can a poem make for some
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poets, for some readers, for some listeners, Poems are instruments for healing.
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When I work with students in the schools, I often use poetries a
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way to help them find their own true voice and then to explore the layers
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of their voice. As a teenager, your job, your primary preoccupation and
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official occupation, is to discover who you really are, to find out for
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yourself what you believe, to find out for yourself what you stand for,
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what you value now. Sometimes I use poetry to help students discover more about
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themselves, as a pathway, as a bridge to explore their various identities and
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ways of making sense in a very complex world. I also use poems to
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help them slow down so they can pay attention to the world around them,
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not the virtual world of social media. I'm talking about the real world,
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the real world that is all around them, the real world that has real
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people with real problems just like they do right and also the world that has
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real people who are filled with love in their hearts. What difference can a
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poem make for young people? Poetry is the fastest way to move from not
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knowing who you are to knowing who you are. Poetry is a way to
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really pay attention to the world inside of you, and it's the same way
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for adults. A few months ago, I was talking to a cohort of
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executives, talking with them about one of my favorite topics, leadership looking through
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the lens of legacy. Now, during my time with that cohort of execs,
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I'd led them in a session where they could explore their values, explore
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their deeply held beliefs about leadership and the significance of their work. After the
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session, a gentleman came up and introduced himself. He said he was the
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founder and executive director of a nonprofit that provided programs and services for at risk
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youth. He'd been asked if I recognized him, I said no, should
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I? He said, Well, when we met the first time you were
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in my classroom. Hm. You were there as part of a big poetry
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project. Hum. He then went on to remind me that I had spent
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a week with his class as an artist in residence. He shared how my
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poetry had touched him and his students and what a difference that had made in
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his classroom. Now, in his new role, he's using the arts,
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visual art, music movement, and poetry to engage youth in his community,
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and he asked if he could use some of my poetry as part of that
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project. Now, I share all of this with you, not to pat
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myself on the back or to impress you. I share it to impress upon
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you the power of poetry to make a difference in your life. So let
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me ask you that question again, what difference can a poem make? Well?
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For this executive director, he not only works in his own local community,
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he connects students at risk youth in his community with communities all over the
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world, because you know what, they're at risk youth in every single continent
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on the planet. What difference can a poem make? A poem could be
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a bridge. Right in my work with doctors and nurses and other healthcare providers,
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we turn to poetry to help them slow down and pay attention to their
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inner life. Now, you can just imagine how hectic life is in the
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emergency room in the er. Right, not just once in a while,
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like when you have to take your daughter or son to the hospital because they
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stuck something in their ear or they swallowed something they never should have put in
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their mouths in the first place. This is life in the er because it's
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your job. This is your world every single day. Well, can you
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imagine going into an er where the doctors aren't talking to the nurses, the
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nurses aren't talking to the doctors, and the folks on the night shift can't
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seem to get along with the folks on the day shift. Sounds kind of
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crazy, doesn't it. Well that world, It's why folks call on me
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as a consultants or as a coach. They need help, and they need
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it fast, and they don't really know how to help themselves. I have
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to pinch myself because I get to work with folks who need the kind of
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CPR that only poetry can provide. We might begin our session with the sounds
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of music to help folks get in harmony with themselves, to help them slow
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down and pay attention to the rhythm that is closer to their own natural rhythm
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versus that fast paced, intense music of a typical emergency room. Right,
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kind of like metallic rock. Okay, now, the music I'm talking about
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is sweet Honey, It's jasmine or magnificent Magnolia. Okay. It's that fragrance
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found in the music, the tempo, the flow of language. It's been
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said that poetry, poetry is the best words in the best order. Let
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me tell you some thing. The right poem at the right time with the
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right people is a small dose of what matters. It's a small dose of
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what makes a difference. Just like a close friend, the kind of close
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friend you can call at three am in the morning, Yes, right,
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and they don't hang up on you. The right poem at the right time,
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with the right people can be the difference that makes all the difference.
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Poetry has the power to awaken us, to shake us up, to shape
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us up, to entertain us, to educate us, to liberate us,
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to heal us, to build bridges wherever before there was only a loose array
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of stones along the road. Poetry also has the power to reimagine the unimaginable,
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to make tangible the intangible, to revisit history and arrest us with its
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industrious, divine, and mysterious ways. Now, before I close today's podcast,
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I want to give a special shout out to a family of poets called
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kave conom cave Contom. It's spelled c a z E like cave okay conom
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c a n e M. Look them up cave Conum Latin okay. And
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to call kave Conom an organization would be to tell only part of their glorious
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story, to share only one of it. It's many many facets. Cave
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Conum is a collective of Poets and Writers of the African Diaspora, founded in
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nineteen ninety six, and since then they have rewritten the book, so to
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speak. Okay, because of this amazing collective, we now have African American
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poets being recognized as US poet laureates. We now have African American poets winning
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major prizes and fellowships like the Lamont Prize awarded by the American Academy of Poets,
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like the Guggenheim Fellowship, Yes, even like the Pulitzer Prize. Right
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now, I have the good fortune of being a poetry fellow with this amazing
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collective called Kabekanam and in its relatively short history, it has effectively changed the
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face and dare I say, changed the very complexion of poets in the US
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and beyond. Because of this incredible organization, we now have more African American
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poets and writers at the table. More of them at the table means that
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there have more decision making authority, which means that they can contribute to lifting
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up the voices of more poets and writers of the African diaspora and beyond.
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Okay, now, this phenomenon has quickened the pace of what was already occurring
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before the founding of Copycanum, but I'm telling you it was at a pace
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that can only be described as glacial. Okay, talk about transformation, Talk
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about transformation, talk about the power of poetry. Now, before I close
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to day, I want to share a poem with you. It's one of
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my favorites and by my favorite poet Lengths to Hughes, and it's called Mother
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to Son. I want to dedicate this poem to a poet who is near
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and dear to me, and that's my mom. Now, I bet you
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didn't know my mom's a poet. Well, she doesn't write poems in the
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same way that I do, but she's a poet just the same. For
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as long as I've known her, my mom has lived her life as a
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poem, and now at the threshold of her ninth decade, she continues to
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do just that. So Mother to the person who has made an incredible and
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indelible difference in my life. This poem, which is all about making your
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life count, this poem is for you. This home is called Mother to
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Son by Manstin Hues. Mother to Son. Life for me ain't been no
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crystal Stare. It's had tax in it an splinters, an boards torn up,
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and places with no carpet on the floor. Bear, But all the
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time eyes been a climbin on a reachin' landens, an turnin' corners. An
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sometimes goin in the dark where there ain't been no light. So boy,
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don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps because you find
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it's kind o hard? Don't you fall now? For I still goin,
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Honey, I still climbin, And life for me ain't been no crystal stare.
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I just love this poem. For me, it's a it's a testament
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to my elders, maybe to your own elders, to people who had the
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grit and the determination and the faith and the perseverance to just keep on keeping
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on. Thank you, Mom, for making such a profound difference in my
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life. This poem is a reflection, a mirror of you. You've made
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a difference in my life every single day three sixty five twenty four seven,
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even now, even now, I think of you every day. I pray
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for you every day. I lift you up every single day. Now.
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If you missed any part of this week's podcast, or if you missed me
32:30
last week, you can listen to this podcast and others at your convenience.
32:36
You can even listen on the go. You can find me on iTunes,
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Alexa, SoundCloud, spreaker dot com, and many many more places. You
32:47
can also listen in right here. Check it out at www dot Talk network
32:54
Radio dot com. Now, before I close today, I want to thank
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each of you for tuning in and for allowing me to share a bit about
33:04
my journey with what legacy living is all about, not just living and learning,
33:08
but living and learning and serving so that you make a difference in your
33:15
own life and in the lives of others. It's about being on purpose every
33:21
single day. Three to sixty five, twenty four seven. Legacy living is
33:28
the most powerful way to make your life count. Once again, I want
33:36
to thank you for joining me for today's podcast. I'm your host, doctor
33:39
Gloria, Gloria Burgess, and this has been Legacy living. Make your life
33:45
count. Don't just count the days in your life, Make the days in
33:53
your life count. That's what legacy living is all about. Have a fantastic
34:00
day and remember, make the days in your life count. God bless you.
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That's our show today. I'm your host, doctor Gloria Gloria Burgess.
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I hope you'll join me again next week. Until then, don't just count
34:31
the days in your life. Make the days in your life account. That's
34:37
what legacy living is all about. Here's to you have a fantastic day.
34:44
Be sure to make it a yes kind of day, and remember, celebrate,
34:50
celebrate the music of your life. Make the day in your life count