WORDS Chloe Laws
Poetry is innately quite cringe. It is a soul-baring, vulnerable and emotive pursuit; all things that society-at-large tells us to suppress in favour of stoicism. So, it’s no surprise that self-defining myself as a poet used to make me shudder.
Up until recently, when someone would ask what I do for work I’d vaguely tell them that I’m a writer. When they would ask what type of writing, I’d only ever mention my journalism – never my poetry, despite poetry being what I am most known for (and passionate about). This internal conflict weighed on me and limited my creativity. How could I produce good work whilst hiding myself?
I started writing poetry at just seven years old – after winning a school-wide competition, I went on to perform in youth competitions. The poem that started it all was a haiku about teapots (laden with clunky metaphors). It didn’t occur to me that this was an embarrassing hobby until eleven years old when social-awareness set in. Standing out was something I wanted to avoid, as most kids do, and so I suppressed my creativity outside of English lessons and attached my identity to whatever was popular that week – denim skirts over leggings, friendship bracelets, tamagotchis. This continued for almost a decade. I wrote in private, daily, but never shared my work, picking perceived popularity and hierarchy over sharing my passion. In doing this I was, unknowingly, shutting myself off from joy and success.
I wrote in private, daily, but never shared my work, picking perceived popularity and hierarchy over sharing my passion. In doing this I was, unknowingly, shutting myself off from joy and success.
With age came authenticity, and I started to give less of a shit about what people would think of my poetry. I began performing at queer open mic nights around London, submitting work to magazines and, eventually, posting on social media. It was the latter that changed my career, and in turn my life, after a poem of mine called ‘It’s Not That Bad’ went viral in 2021. To date, it has over one million likes. In the space of just a few days, my following grew from ten thousand to thirty thousand people on Instagram, I got signed by a literary agent, and even got invited on national radio to read my work.
This success and positive reaction to my poetry helped ease the feelings of embarrassment I had, but I still felt like I was walking naked onto a stage every time I shared a new poem. This feeling consumed me until last year. What changed? It will sound cliché, but therapy. I finally realised that the life I want, one full of tenderness, compassion and creativity, is only possible if I embrace what I love. And what I love is writing poetry, sharing in vulnerability with others and being relentlessly honest. As Julien Torma said, “True poetry is embarrassing.” I accepted that embarrassment is a worthwhile side effect of happiness.
Catriona Innes, an author, poet and journalist, had a similar experiences. “I began sharing my poetry with the idea in my mind that what I was sharing (issues with my health, how overwhelming I was finding lockdown) were things I had to release or express somehow and that was the way to do it,” she tells me.
“As more people discovered my work I struggled a lot more with sharing as it was more people who didn’t know me, didn’t know my thoughts/intricacies so could really judge what I was trying to say and that impacted my work,” she says. “On the other side, so did the idea of my friends/family worrying about me or thinking I was in a really bad place with my mental health (when writing is what helps my mental health!).”
Poetry is not unique in the overexposed way it makes poets feel. Most creative work isthe same, whether its art, music, cinema, acting. It cracks us open and leaves our softchestnut insides out on display for the world to see. But it is in that soft stuff, that tenderness, human connection is made.
Eventually, Innes decided that separating these worlds was the best route forward: “I decided that the poet part of me is just one side of me, and is – in some ways – a fictionalised version of who I am, as though the majority of my poems are inspired by my real life, it’s a blend of different parts/occasions and thoughts.” She thinks of her poet-self as a character, as this helps her ‘release them into the world as if anyone does judge they aren’t really judging me, as a whole person’.
Poetry is not unique in the overexposed way it makes poets feel. Most creative work is the same, whether it’s art, music, cinema, acting. It cracks us open and leaves our soft chestnut insides out on display for the world to see. But it is in that soft stuff, that tenderness, that human connection is made. There is no Big Secret in overcoming our fear of cringe. It takes daily work and small acts of braveness. You have to try taking an aerial view of your life and focus on what you want from art, not how society has conditioned you to feel about said art.
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