One of my dearest held principles that I share with as many actors as possible is actually quite simple: read poetry. This is even more applicable if you’re also a playwright, writer, director, or composer. The overlap between theatre and poetry is huge, and not just with the classics. Music and poetry are inextricably linked. Reading poetry, both casually and out loud, can really help you grow as an actor and give you the skills to better understand text and subtext when it’s presented to you. Below are some of my very favorite poems for actors. Enjoy.
maybe i’m just distracting myself. maybe i’m using them so there’s no room to think of you. maybe having good days gives my brain something else to do.
maybe i’m just distracting myself. maybe i’m using them so there’s no room to think of you. maybe having good days gives my brain something else to do.
anytime someone starts a sentence with, “but you were doing so much better!” I want to tell them the amount of times i’ve cried since tuesday. if it seems like i’m doing better, i’m just holding myself up with duct tape.
it’s catching your tears as they fall, or better yet not having to cry at all until 10 pm. it’s staying a little longer at the party even though you may see him (not to be confused with staying for him). it’s refusing to stay in bed as you say no to the toxic thoughts in your head. it’s still allowing yourself to spend time alone, because there were things left unsaid, that only you know. but there’s a danger in doing that in your own home. behind shutters and locked doors, the unsaid words will become one with the floor boards, asking to be walked on.
instead be alone on the lawn. on picnic tables, humming songs on drives with the windows down. you need to invite the town into your heartache- because their love is the only way you will move on.
moving on doesn’t mean you can’t think about him, it doesn’t mean you’re any less thin from the meals you didn’t eat. it doesn’t mean you don’t look for him in every empty seat, darting your eyes across the room, wondering: where is he.
it is okay if your heart is still shaking, if it feels like bits of you are breaking off with each day. God meant for you to feel this way so he could shape you: adding wheels and an engine, making you into something that can move on
for once I would like to wake up to the sound of the birds and fall back asleep. I am tired of waking up to the speed of my own heartbeat, making it impossible to fall back asleep.
