An Artist's Dilemma

It started on the last day of fifth grade when one of my teachers squeezed me tight and with tears in her eyes, told me, “Promise me you’ll keep writing.” Then, in middle school, my math teacher ensured she’d get the first copy of my poetry book when it came out. My mama told me how excited she was to be my “momager,” and all my high school creative writing teachers applauded my work that was published in our annual magazine for four years straight. For the majority of my life, writing has been all that I know how to do. When people thought of me, it was always how I wrote beautiful poetry. If you ever needed help on a creative writing assignment, I was your girl. Yet, as COVID came into my life and brought a downfall to many of my plans, writing became my chore instead of my art. 

I  believed that since poetry was one of the only things that always stayed in my life, that it was a sign I was meant to keep going with it. It started as an outlet for my feelings growing up. In my household, anger or sadness directed at someone else was deemed “attitude” and was shut down immediately—you can imagine what that does to a kid growing up. Every few days, there would be a new poem in this little scrappy notebook I had lying around my house. Come high school, when I had proper therapy, my emotional outlet with poetry turned into my art. I still wrote about my feelings, but I also wrote about dreams, people in my life, and the places I visited. It all started as short, cliché pieces, and I then improved my craft over time with the help of my teachers and doing open mics after school. 

Art by Rebecca Calvar

Poetry wasn’t something I made every day, but I wrote consistently. I’m pretty sure I have five notebooks worth of poetry from middle and high school in my home in Brooklyn. I saw myself as an artist, whether my art was seen by 10 people or 100, when it was published in a magazine or just written for myself like it had been for years prior. 

Visual Media Arts major Brooks Walker ’25, shared his reason for calling himself an artist, “I identify as an artist simply because I create art. I take my experiences, emotions, and environment and try to translate them through what I make. Sometimes what I make isn’t always for other people, which took me a little while to learn. Sometimes something I create is literally the only way that I am able to express and communicate these emotions to myself.”

Calling yourself an artist doesn’t convey some elitist standing—it is just the truth. Anyone can become an artist if they create art, no matter the medium. However, when COVID took over everyone’s lives and all our time was spent indoors, I found myself slowly losing any interest in writing. I tried doing little writing prompts, writing a sentence a day, even just writing when I felt like it, but nothing worked. I’d write poems by myself every few months, and then that turned into longer periods of time without writing.

Of course, when I had writing assignments, I got them done. But it still wasn’t with the same enthusiasm I once had for my art. I figured that I was just dealing with the pandemic and once things got better, my love for writing would return. I held onto that hope when it was time to apply to colleges, and with every application, I put down “Creative Writing major” or “English major,” handed in a little portfolio, and continued on with my day. However, I didn’t continue to write. When I did have a moment of inspiration, it was just that: a moment. My notes app is full of one-liners and unfinished poems that I never went back to because I didn’t even have the energy to write in my notebook like I used to. 

I continued holding onto hope when I got to college. I only had a literature class and my prerequisites, so there was no need to worry about not making art for a while, but once I had my first college poetry class, I found myself struggling. Not in the class itself, but the fact that, once again, I could not write for myself—only if it was a necessity or for a grade did I have the energy to make something. I found myself constantly questioning my capabilities. If I couldn’t make poems or even publish them like I’d see many of my peers do, how would I turn my art into a career? There were many nights I would cry because outside of writing, I didn’t know who I was. That sense of loss is heartbreaking. It got to the point where I almost changed my major to something more practical, like business. 

However, I had an interview with my old poetry teacher in high school, Mr. Elliot, who told me the harsh truths of the writing world and how writing isn’t always easy. Not that I didn’t already know that, but hearing it from someone you admire in your field hits harder. At the end of our interview, I asked him if I could see my letter of recommendation from him. He happily said yes and wished me good luck. Once I got to read that document, I remember sobbing for a good ten minutes. He wrote about all of my accomplishments from my freshman year to senior year and went into depth about my poems. It made me think back to all my growth over the years with my art, and while I haven’t produced much in the last two years, how could I equate that with all I’d done prior. I was still an artist. Even being able to write this article and sharing it with anyone reading it is proof of that.