Iconic Poetry

I have recently cracked open this particular collection of poems, written by Tyler Knott Gregson, called "Chasers of the light: poems from the typewriter series".

It is just inexplicably relevant. When I purchased this particular book, I was simply grabbing random collections of poems. When I found out that these poems were put together from pieces he wrote on an old typewriter, I thought that it was unique and interesting.
What I came to find out is that his whole mantra in this collection is finding the bright side of situations. "The Lighter Side" if you will. Some of the moments are tragic and emotional, but there is always something that brings a light element, however miniscule.

I want to share two of my favourite pieces, because they are absolutely perfect and had me in tears, but also smiling. Tragic and hard-hitting and a reminder to always look for the better in everything.

"Find the positivity. Find the grace. Find it and hold it and cling to it like it is your lifeline and only breath of air before everything sinks. Find the silver linings. Hold them in your lungs and search for them in the bubbles and rubble of all that pours down around you. Find the bright spot in the dark clouds, listen for the sounds of birds when the winds pick up and tear down the house around you. It is there, shhh, it is there, it is always there and it is waiting for you to reach out with both hands, bloody and shaking, and hold tight to it like it is the last thing you will ever learn how to let go. Find the glory, the glory through the ache, and understand that it is what we can endure that defines who we become. It has never been about the punches we can throw, but the punches we can absorb and still stand up from. It is the standing up, it has always been the standing up and the refusal to lie still and quiet as the numbers count towards ten and the knockout becomes complete.
Rise my soul, rise through the flame and the ash, rise through the waters that fill the spaces under your arms as they crawl toward your throat. Rise and find the grace, for it is all around you.
Find it. Find the grace."

Here is the second (more devastating):

"Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

Be gentle, always delicate with every soul you meet, for every single morning you wake up, there is someone Wishing, silently and secretly, that they had not."

From an utterly random find to a new love. I love his poetry. I love the ways he can turn a phrase. I love how, just when you think it is sounding all cliché, he adds in a term or an unexpected visual that reaches through right into your soul. He takes the depths of human emotion and presents it on a page - tangible, real - and you realize that your deepest and most vulnerable thoughts are mirrored by someone who you have never even met.

This is the kind of writing I can only hope to one day present. He has such a gift and I am so grateful for having experienced it.
It reminds me that looking for The Lighter Side of Medicine; that Chasing the Light, is not a fool's errand, but essential to our personal survival, and something that great writers have written about. It gives me added motivation to continue the path I have set out with something as simple as this blog. It may never go anywhere, but somewhere out there, it might just reach someone in a way that I could never have predicted.
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