The Personhood Project Episode 9: Jayme Ringleb

Poet Jayme Ringleb sits down with Aaron Tyler Hand for episode 9 of The Personhood Project. The two talk about Jayme's debut collection of poetry title So Tall It Ends In Heaven and themes seen throughout the book. Specifically, they talk about estrangement and how writing can help someone overcome feelings of estrangement, as well as distances and ways that writing can help close both physical and emotional distances. Jayme also offer tips on becoming comfortable sharing your poetry with a larger public.

Jayme Ringleb:

If you're writing poetry as an extension of what you've experienced, if you're writing poetry as an extension of your hardship, necessarily, your emotional experience has to come before putting the poetry out into other's hands.

Poems:

I’ve Always Felt a Longing for Serenity

The calm after the storm

Acquaintances, so many by which we meet

Me, continuous plucking out all there lovable attributes

Is that what’s wrong with me?

Wandering through time, wanting someone to have a heart

like mine?

Unknowingly letting others take control of my mind, body, & soul

I’ve realized life is what happens when you’re planning something

else

To pursue not the outer entanglements

Or dwell not on the inner void

But to be serene in the oneness of things

And allow dualism to vanish by itself

Wanting and needing become useless

for I have everything I need and more

Breath in my lungs

The Earth in my eyes

My mother and father in my laugh

Yet so many strongholds remain in my mind

I have succumb to Camryn

the greatest antique of all

ruthless to herself

Though so merciful to others

Continuously stuck between the worlds

The mental and the physical

But there seems to be the rarest kind of beauty in suffering

Suffering, you see, leads to a great awakening

One day the Holy Spirit will take me and I will be ready

not because I want to go

But to see what parts of me will remain

And Serenity will be mine

Untitled

Loss is rarely loud; a simple

“See you around” that isn’t

fulfilled

Left hanging in the air to

slowly sink into the ground; planted

in time, a promise not broken but

not kept

I still wish for it to be

brought into bloom like the

marigolds in the spring

But

It is long gone now, a loss I

did not know was coming. A loss

I can not grieve

For they still say hi and

smile, but the crinkle is gone

from their eyes.

Lost

Search 4 hope, it’s nowhere near

Living life 2 the fullest I had no fear

Heart was ice cold, couldn’t shed a tear

Now I’m trying 2 find a way 2 be free

But my days are dark n it’s hard 2 see

Nowhere 2 run 2 nowhere 2 go

Missing my family

Miles apart, only contact on phone

I feel so depressed and all alone

Mommy ♡’s yall, can’t wait till I’m home

But until then I’m finding myself

Picturing myself better in spirit n in health

Drowning my pain w/ drugs n beer

is what I did 4 the past 7 years

Mind is racing Lungs full of dope

Gatta break this chain gatta

break this cycle

So I do what is best n open

up my bible

I get on my knees n I pray 2 the lord

to take away dis pain I don’t want this

addiction anymore

I wanna be free I wanna be able 2 breathe

Untitled

His old tired hands were sitting there

left on the piano he could no longer play

from there the sounds were left to his heirs

the sounds make things okay.

Writing Prompts:

1. In Love Poem So Tall It Ends in Heaven, Jayme Ringleb takes a tragic moment and turns it into something beautiful. The speaker in the poem talks about the suicide of someone they loved, but through planting a part of them in the ground, the tragic loss because easier to deal with. As the idea of their death literally haunts them, the tragedy blooms and blends into the natural world How can you take the loss of a loved one and turn it into something beautiful? Write a poem where you imagine a part of that loved one being buried in the ground. What part would you bury? What beauty would grow from the ground in its place?
   

2. My Husband, Lost in the World acts almost like a travel journal. In it, the speaker talks about all of the places that their husband has left parts of their body as they’ve traveled, made memories, connected with people and nature in different parts of the world. Take this idea and write a poem about some of your favorite places. What are the locations? What body parts did you leave at each of them? What do those body represent? Share the story of your life through the places you’ve been and the body parts you left there.
   

3. Jayme uses Love Poem as an expression of vulnerability. In it, the speaker of the poem finds self-love through being comfortable opening up. They talk about the sadness of someone they love leaving them but through showing all of their heart, they are able to end up in a place where they are able to love themselves. Write a poem where you aren’t afraid to open up and be vulnerable. If you allow yourself to take your guard down, what kind of things would you talk about? Who would you forgive? Show the journey to you loving yourself more.