How to Conjure Poetry Magic in Self-Care
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
By Stephanie Athena Valente
“I am going through the language of me now.” – Elizabeth Metzger
“I found the Muse in myself. And I loved Her fiercely.” – Annie Finch
From my personal experience, self-care and personal magic is an extremely individualized experience. I didn’t come to understand the power of self-care and my inner witch until I started to rebuild my life after the trauma of a violent relationship with an intimate partner.
Magic and self-work started on a hot summer night in July. I recently moved into a studio in Brooklyn I could hardly afford. I was working a new job for barely over two weeks. Three months prior to that, my entire life turned upside down.
I was suffering and I was grieving. I felt like a broken person. I spent years in an emotionally abusive relationship that turned physically abusive. It ended violently. I almost died. My entire being was shell shocked. When I moved into my own apartment after leaving my abuser, I was shaken. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was so grateful to have my studio apartment, my dog, and peace. And all I could see was empty space.
In my first few nights in the apartment, I didn’t realize how much healing with poetry magic would be discovered in the coming months. I casually referred to myself as a witch for a few years by then. But, I had zero confidence. My low self-esteem and emotional and physical trauma had me so closed off from a spiritual practice. I had spent the last few years just trying to survive and walk on eggshells around my abuser. I didn’t have time to really think about what witchcraft meant to me, let alone grow into a magical environment.
Something inside me shifted. One night, I lit a candle and walked around my barely decorated studio. I had a bed and an armchair. Some of my things were still in boxes. I opened my back door and sat on the stoop to the backyard. With the candle next to me on the stoop, I picked up my journal and pen.
I just started writing. At first it was something that wasn’t unlike poetry, but it wasn’t a poem. Short lyrical sentences. For the first time in months, something in me felt real and alive. For the rest of the summer, at night I would light a candle and sit on the stoop and put pen to paper. Some nights it was just for a stray five minutes, other nights would feel like hours. But each night, I wrote and wrote and started shaping more poems. I wrote about my trauma. I wrote about my new life as a survivor.
I kept writing. I filled up notebooks with poems, even chunks of lyrical paragraphs, and even a young adult novel written as diary entries about a domestic violence survivor. I haven’t published any of the works from these journals written in the summer of 2016. I don’t know if I ever will, I might. But that summer, I transformed into my rightful identity as a witch. Every night, I sat with fire and conjured words. I enchanted myself with expression, healing, and questioning. I leaned into my fears, my shadow side, and the darkness that had stained my spirit.
Poetry magic showed me things in myself I didn’t know existed. My power. My will to survive. During that summer, I started to think deeply about spellwork. I was finally safe, and I could look into magic without skepticism or interruption. And again, I turned to poetry to find my voice. To find my holiness and sacredness that I had all along but thought I lost.
Poetry saved me. I quickly started casting spells. Sometimes they worked with success (hello, big raise). And sometimes they didn’t work at all (internet dating was so-so). One day, while walking my dog Pepper, I thought to myself: What if I wrote poems as spells? Poems make you feel good and whole. Shouldn’t spellwork make me feel the same way? Good and whole?
Soon, I started riffing on little scraps of paper. One line affirmations. Two line good luck spells. Three line gratitude spells. I recited them in hot baths for love. I said them in my mind while walking to work or going on a first date. I gave thanks while walking my dog. I wrote poem spells in the coffee shop for surprise chances. I carried small poem spells in my pocket for confidence before taking the stage at a literary reading. Poetry magic was with me everywhere. And now, it’s something I add into my spell casting without thinking. It’s a part of my life as a witch.
That summer was one of the most transformative periods in my life. I felt like a winged being rising from the ashes into my true form. I fully stepped into my true form as a poet witch.
While my path to magic was based in trauma, renewal, and ultimately the flames of strength, I do not think I needed trauma to get me here. It just happened that way. In my own journey, I am so connected to magic and creative expression, I would have discovered poetry magic at some point. But the urgent need to rediscover my voice and rebuild myself gave me poetry spells. That I will never forget.
Stephanie Athena Valente lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her published works include Hotel Ghost, waiting for the end of the world, and Little Fang (Bottlecap Press, 2015-2019). She has work included in Witch Craft Magazine, Maudlin House, and Cosmonauts Avenue. She is the associate editor at Yes, Poetry. Sometimes, she feels human. stephanievalente.com
