EP. 1564: Poet Randall Taylor (THE BEAUTIFUL SCAR)

Watch the poetry movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lbp1qFcH2o www.instagram.com/realsilentdream What is the theme of your poem? The theme of “The Beautiful Scar” is learning to find the beauty in the humanity we often rob ourselves of when we feel like the world is rejecting us. What motivated you to write this poem? During the first year of the MFA program at UNR-Lake Tahoe, I was away at our winter residency, and I was so encapsulated by my colleagues’ vulnerability and the power they gave to their truth of the hardships they experienced in their own lives. One of them told me that my writing was already at that level but what held me back was withholding my own truth to protect those I was writing about. This poem was the turning point for me to be more honest and vulnerable, not just with my audience, but with myself. It was a difficult process to grasp and write through but for the first time in my 25 years [at the time] of life, I finally felt free. How long have you been writing poetry? I was a slow-learner as a kid, so I caught on to reading and writing at a later age than my siblings did, but I began creative writing through free-writing in 1st grade when I was six years old. I began learning how to write poetry at eight years old and began writing my own poems at twelve years old, so I’ve been writing for about twenty-two years with seventeen years to this day of writing poetry and it’s a blessing I always remind myself to be grateful for. Subscribe to the podcast: https://twitter.com/wildsoundpod https://www.instagram.com/wildsoundpod/ https://www.facebook.com/wildsoundpod