“To get my book out there, I was told that I needed to perform my poetry. And I was like, ‘Um, no.’ I’ve been performing since I was 3, singing at church, in the school choir, and for different events through the years. I was comfortable with that. But I never wanted to physically give voice to my poetry.

“I’ve been through a lot in life. I thought that performing about it would make what happened even more real. But I’m in my 40s now. I’ve grown into myself. And I’ve learned that if you give it to the world, they can’t use it against you. I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve experienced.

“From that first moment I got on stage to perform my poetry, I just laid it all out there. The response after the shows was really positive. It led me to believe that it was greater than me being afraid to talk about what I’d been through.

“When I started, I was just Raquel Segura. In the poetry world, that’s too boring. So they call me Da Truth. I speak about real life stuff. God has blessed me to be able to write. I always thought my singing voice would be the way to share myself with the world. But I’d pick up a pen to write a song, and it would turn into poetry.

“I hosted at Houston Improv for two years as part of one of the first poetic groups to perform at that comedy club. I auditioned and was selected to do four shows for Super Bowl Live when the game was held in Houston. I also perform for a lot of private events, and I’ve done a few things at churches. Overall, I’d say that I’ve been pretty blessed to have such a big stage.”

— Raquel Segura

At Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital, where Raquel is a senior human resources representative, patients have requested her to sing at their bedsides. During the pandemic, her singing has helped to boost co-workers’ morale.

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“I was 26 years old. It was my first pregnancy. I was healthy. I was athletic. Then it just happened. They told me, ‘Your cervix is gone.’ I had what’s called an incompetent cervix. It can lead to premature birth or losing your baby.

“They kept me in the hospital, head down and feet up, for two days. I was almost at six months. If they could get me to at least seven months on bed rest, my son could be born and possibly still live. But he would run the risk of cerebral palsy and some other things.

“I’ll never forget. After that conversation with the doctor, I was lying in the hospital bed and watching a Lakers game on TV. And I prayed. I was like, ‘God, I’m not sure if I’m strong enough at this point in my life to deal with a child with special needs. If my baby is going to be that, I don’t want him to suffer. So just do what you have to do.’ An hour later, my water broke and I went into labor. I delivered a beautiful 1-pound, 10-ounce baby boy. He breathed for just a moment, and that was it.

“It was heartbreaking. Initially, it was hard to come to grips with. One of the things I did was write about it in a poem called ‘Only Begotten Son.’ And when I would share things with people, they told me how much hearing what I had gone through helped them. I ended up publishing that poem in a book of poetry.

“Because of losing my son and other things I’ve gone through in life, I’ve been able to speak to other women and breathe life into other mothers. My son made me who I am. It’s a daily struggle. But it’s a beautiful journey.”

— Raquel Segura

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• Spoken word poet tells Da Truth

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The post Poetry emerges from heartbreaking loss appeared first on The Baytown Project.

Overwhelmed by the daily COVID-19 updates, the stresses of four adults living together in a pandemic, and five pets beneath our feet, I am doing a lot of self-therapy with ink, specifically poetry. Poetry is my journal, my written reflections of riding an emotional roller coaster when yesterday feels more like hope than tomorrow.

Pandemic – Suspended

Across the street life moves
in the same strange distance
January didn’t demand.

Suspended, life on pause, I can’t
imagine tomorrow’s landscape
while spending all my courage on today.

Current events and history converge
on my doorstep, one too fluid to reach answers,
the other grumbling, “You never learn.”

Social distance, ironic unity of a world
using separation to fight an enemy
whose weapons are invisible.

— Susie Clevenger

Susie is an author and poet. See more of her work at susieclevenger.com.

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“I love animals. If I see a lost dog or cat on the side of the road, I’m like, ‘Oh, you poor thing. I can’t keep you, but I’ll shelter you for a couple days until I find you a home.’ I guess I’m just that type of person.

“That’s probably why I wrote this poem a long time ago called ‘Lost at Night.’ I had forgotten all about it. But when I was moving, I stumbled upon my poem book and rediscovered it. It was about a dog lost at night who can’t find his way home.

“I think I’ve always been a writer. But I’ve just recently decided to actually do something about it. I’m trying to get my words out there. So I thought, why not extend this poem into a children’s book. The lost dog meets another dog, and together they meet a cat. Then they all meet a duck. And later on, they meet two bluejays. They’re all lost at night, and home is nowhere in sight. Throughout their journey, they become friends. Then they finally meet a woman, and she takes all of them in. It’s kind of a sad story, but it has a happy ending.

“As a rescuer myself, I think the story carries a message about having a heart for lost animals. They all deserve a chance to have a home with someone who will love them and take care of them.”

— Maureen St. louis Nelson

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“I probably got my love for writing from my mom. She’s a retired English teacher. I’ve always wanted to write. I remember writing plays when I was young, and having my sister and brothers act in them. In elementary school I won a writing contest for a story about a troll trying to eat a Thanksgiving turkey. The winner was supposed to read the story on the local radio station. But me and my friend were the last two people in the class to get chicken pox, and I wasn’t able to do it. So my mom bundled me up, put me in the car, and turned on the radio so we could listen to my teacher read my story. 

“As I got older, my mom and grandmother bought me journals, and I would fill those with all kinds of stories and poetry. When I write poetry, it’s often about things that I’ve experienced or observed out in the world. Like one time, I met this homeless veteran who lived underneath the freeway. He told me how he had lost both his daughters in one day. They were killed by a driver. His oldest daughter was 21, and she died on her birthday. The other child was 16. He had a tattoo of two gravestones on his arm. I noticed that his shoes were all torn up. I had bought some steel-toed boots to do some work at my house. So I went to my car and gave them to him. He tried to thank me, but I told him it wasn’t necessary. Later on, I learned that he had passed away one night out in the cold. People were just walking by, not realizing or even paying any attention to him. It was so sad. So I decided to write a poem about it. I posted it on Veterans Day a few years ago, with the hope that more people would realize what these vets are going through. And that maybe we need to do more. Maybe we need to feel more.”

— Clarissa Fielder (Liberty)

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And you beam with pride when you hear that your 13-year-old granddaughter, Rachel, is a published author.

An eighth-grader at International School of Hamburg in Germany, Rachel has written a book of poetry, “Hidden In These Lies.” She says it’s a place where her experiences and dreams reside in the form of verse.

The post Young poet makes her grandmother proud appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I’ve always written poetry. That’s how I dealt with my emotions, putting things down on paper. It started when my grandmother died. I didn’t know how to deal with that. It was the first time I really felt so much hurt.

“So I just wrote something about my grandmother and called it ‘Heaven Hall of Fame.’ I read it to my family at the Christmas get-together. I had copies for all of them. They said, ‘Rusty, that’s a beautiful poem.’ I really didn’t think of it as being poetry. That’s just how I got my feelings out.

“But I used that talent the wrong way for years. I would write these women something real nice and pretty, trying to set me up with them. Then this lady here, when I met her and eventually let her read one of my poems, she said, ‘You ought to write a book.’ People had told me that before. I always thought, yeah, OK, whatever. But when she said it, I thought, yeah, let’s do it.

“It’s called ‘Jesus: Keep It Simple.’ There’s a poem on one page and questions to go with it on the other page, with a place to write notes. Through the poems you can seek answers, and through the questions you can find solutions.

“I’ve done so much to help destroy other people’s lives by getting high with them, introducing them to marijuana, introducing them to other drugs and stuff. Now it’s time for me to try to reach people in a different, more positive way.”

— Russell “Rusty” Jenkins

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“I don’t usually start writing the beginning of a poem. I start in the middle and build around it. No matter how you approach it, you want every line to be impactful. You want to say something that will move someone.

“I feel like my best poems come whenever there’s a sudden change. I don’t adapt that well, so writing about it is very helpful. A neighbor recently committed suicide, and I wrote a poem that talked about some good memories and how we’re going to really miss him moving forward.

“I also write a lot about relationships. Starting at a young age I would really dive into my relationships, which probably wasn’t the greatest idea. But I’m in a much happier relationship now. I think you usually write about what you know, and I think I know about love. As much as a 20-year-old can.”

— EmmaLee Newman

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The post Creating poetry helps her deal with change appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I started writing poetry in third grade. There was this writing competition at school, and I won first in state. But growing up, I didn’t think there were other poets around here because there really wasn’t a place in Baytown where we could get together.

“I started Dirty Bay Poetry in 2015. I performed on open mic nights at Cork Grinders, and I got a small group of people to come perform with me. Slowly we’ve been building. We’ve published two anthologies of local poets’ work. I think we represent the poetry community here very well.

“But with Cork Grinders recently closing, we’ve lost our home. We’re trying to find a new place that is willing to host poets on a consistent basis. If not, I’m worried that our local poetry community will start to diminish. I really don’t want to see that happen.”

— EmmaLee Newman

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The post Local poetry community making itself heard appeared first on The Baytown Project.