Creative on the rise!
Introducing Sarah!
Sarah is an exceptionally talented and gifted poet, with remarkable passion and determination to make impactful strides in the world through her craft and this is very obvious in her zeal and consistency in the world of Literature, specifically poetry which speaks for itself. Her relatable and brilliant style of writing is exactly why Sarah is now here on the most prestigious writers platform in the world.
Today, we take a foray into the world of Sarah with excerpts below detailing her amazing story.
My name is Sarah Ruth Penna and I am from Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Poetry has been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I was heavily immersed in the arts, theater, and music, so my journals were filled with adolescent lyrics and musings on life.
Writing was always something I excelled in at school and words came easily to me. At Seventeen, I got introduced to a spoken word album by levi the poet called Correspondence: A Fiction and it completely opened me up to the world of poetry. It was around this time that I wrote some of the first poems that I thought might actually be good (“Score Study” and “I Lied When I Agreed That Wes Anderson Movies Seem Dumb”). Later that year I was published in an anthology of American high school poets and performed at my first open mics.
In college I studied music education and most of my time was spent in practice rooms, onstage, or at the conducting podium. Poetry became a personal solace to me, an artistic outlet that felt free of the pressure I experienced while playing classical piano or performing arias.
I didn’t write regularly, but every time a poem came to me, it felt like sharing a secret with myself and I loved that. Once I graduated, I moved to Vermont to teach elementary school music. But the pandemic had other ideas for me, and I quit to go forth and live a number of other lives as a cheese farmer, park ranger, and store clerk. Throughout this time I wrote poetry inspired by my students, the natural places where I practiced stewardship, the townspeople I came to know and
love, my chronic illness, and the wonders of my daily life. The poetry was still sequestered away in my heart, mind, and private journals, only being shared if I felt especially close to someone or proud of what I’d written. However, when I moved back to Massachusetts to work for the local Girl Scout Council, my poetry went in a completely new direction.
On a cold, dark, late January night I found myself trying to reconnect with my roots at an open mic in my new hometown. It had been an exceptionally challenging few months settling into another new career, battling my chronic illness, and dealing with a lot of difficult emotions. I showed up late to the open mic, rushing from the Girl Scout program I’d been facilitating, and had no idea what I was going to read. The group was welcoming, the words were flowing, and I felt myself immediately relax once I sat down. I can’t remember what I decided to read, but I know that I was eager and it felt good to use my voice in a room of strangers. When the night was over, one of the poets approached me and introduced himself as Paul. He complimented my work and asked questions about my life. As we talked, we discovered that he had been camping many times in Vermont at the exact state park I used to manage. We bonded instantly and he invited me to another open mic series that he hosts.
At that open mic, I met a whole second group of incredibly kindhearted poets whose words and friendship sparked something long forgotten in my soul. That night, Paul asked if I would consider being a featured poet at another date later in the year and introduced me to a local independent publisher who he thought may be interested in helping me pull together a poetry collection. I thank my lucky stars for this right place, right time serendipity because this experience with this poetry community electrified me.
When I left my teaching job, it felt like surgically removing a vital part of my identity.
Everyone knew me as a musician and educator. I had no creative compass at that time and just felt lost. I channeled those feelings into my new work on the farm and the state park, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d lost my creative anchor. Moving back to Massachusetts and reigniting that artistic flame through poetry made me feel real again.
I spent months gathering together piles of the poems I’d written in the last ten years,meticulously organizing them for my collection. My publisher and I emailed back and forth constantly, him giving me sound guidance and advice, and me absorbing it all like a sponge. As I traversed this archive of work I had created so passively, I realized something important: I am a writer.
In June, my book, Secret Alphabets, was released and I felt I’d birthed a new creative life for myself. I began actively churning out new poems, participating in regular online poetry exchanges, and taking requests from friends for typewriter poems. Writing became an embodied experience that I developed a hunger for. My calendar filled with open mic dates, book launches, and writing workshops. I felt and still do feel at home in the world of words.
Music had always carried with it an element of stress for me. There was pressure to be perfect, to rearticulate somebody else’s artistic ideas in exactly the way they meant. You had to spend long, grueling hours practicing, sometimes stretching yourself beyond your physical or mental capacity. But when I write poetry, it is like receiving a transmission from the divine. I am not religious, but I am spiritual. Poems come to me almost fully formed, as if unbeknownst to me, my soul has been in cahoots with the universe, making connections, spinning threads, and playing with language in a mysterious undercurrent of my mind. Words fall out of me like ripe fruit falling from a tree. The poems aren’t always perfect, of course. I revise, edit, tweak word choices, adjust enjambments, and fix mangled metaphors. But the essence comes fully formed, uncompromised and I relish in the ability to be playful in unearthing its expression.
Poetry has been a force of good for me. It helps me make sense of the world around me and the events of my life, connects me to inspiring people and folks I never would have encountered otherwise, and illuminates a type of creativity and artistic expression I truly didn’t realize existed. I’m so grateful to be a poet. It brings me unbridled joy to think of all the great poems I have yet to read and write and the fascinating poets I’ll get to encounter along the way.
What a gift we have in language, and it’s an honor to use it as an artistic medium.
Here’s to poems and the people who love them!"
Sarah is a rising force in poetry and its a pleasure to name her officially as a "Creative on the rise". Her talents are incredible and the entire poetry community is better for her presence.
Joseph Spencer. (P.Hd)
Founder/Collab Tour
