I find that writing helps me immensely. Not just poetry. I journal and write excessively every day. Sometimes more than once a day. I am a fountain pen collector and find that the focus it takes to move the fountain pen across the page allows me to slow down, concentrate, and enjoy the process. I started writing when I was nine years old. A child of the 60s, living in Harlem with parents who were far from Activist and did not even explain what was going on. So my writing became my way of expressing, letting out, of having control over my words about things I did not understand. Over the years, my writing continues to be my saving grace, my lifeline, and my first line of defense against my traumas of the past. Sometimes, just to find an affirmation that makes sense, or makes me think some way differently about things going on around me. I have a pile of journals that I have stacked up and can look at instantly and often. My reminder that even at my age, there is still more to live and write about. I have a bumper sticker coming that says "On an adventure before Dementia." I am definitely trying to stay ahead if I can and writing helps me sort things out so I can try to move forward in my healing.

Hi

I am above all a music-lover, but I'm also a musician. Music saved me, I have composed since the age of 15, and I teach music.

Believe me when I say that ANYBODY can compose. Some people have more facility than others. Almost all need encouragement. But all people can create music if:
They lose their preconception of what is music! I will add a YouTube example to support that, a piece by a famous composer, some of whose music I love.

What am I saying? If by any chance you wish to compose poetry, I believe you can. As long as first you discard all preconceptions as to what constitutes poetry.

Later it can be interesting to study about poetry/ composing/ etc. But only once your own creativity is flowing freely.

Musical example on YouTube:
Steve Reich and Wolfram Winkel - clapping music

I want to offer you a challenge. You state that you are someone who does not compose poetry. I bet you could write a poem. You love the metaphor of the waves that ebb and flow on the ocean. Now, I want you to visit that image, close your eyes and see it the waves ebbing and flowing, the dance and rhythm of the ocean. Either turbulent or calm with the sun rising or the sun setting. I went through just a few poems and tried to stay away from the ones that were not contemporary in their language. I decided on the one below. Just take a line, or a few words of it and think about the ocean and the ebb and flow and what it does to you or what it makes you feel , now write something. It does not have to be perfect, no such thing as a perfect poem. Squash your internal editor who wants to butt in before it's time and just write freely. Write anything that comes to you and what you are feeling when you think of the ocean and the ebb and flow of it. Enough images? See what happens in the process. Good Luck

Seaside
by Rupert Brooke
Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band,
The crowd’s good laughter, the loved eyes of men,
I am drawn nightward; I must turn again
Where, down beyond the low untrodden strand,
There curves and glimmers outward to the unknown
The old unquiet ocean. All the shade
Is rife with magic and movement. I stray alone
Here on the edge of silence, half afraid,

Waiting a sign. In the deep heart of me
The sullen waters swell towards the moon,
And all my tides set seaward.
From inland
Leaps a gay fragment of some mocking tune,
That tinkles and laughs and fades along the sand,
And dies between the seawall and the sea.