B2 — OJILUSAN

Poetry

A curiosity through love, feeling, and imagination shapes my writing voice. Poetry is not always a reflection of my lived experience, but rather a space where I can explore emotions, storytelling, and metaphor in a fictional way. While there is naturally some overlap between art and my own life, I don’t write to document what’s true; I enjoy writing the “what could be.”

A lot of my inspiration comes from music. I’ve always been drawn to how sound alone can carry so much emotional weight. Instrumentals are often what move me most in a song, I believe the sound itself communicates more powerfully than words ever could. But even so, I find so much inspiration in song titles and lyrics. A single line or just one phrase can spark an entire poem. Maybe it is because I am a drummer, or maybe not, but music has taught me to write with rhythm in mind.

I gravitate toward imagery and personification to animate my work. I love the idea of giving life to the nonhuman or abstract, letting an emotion have a body, or letting an inanimate object become a character. Fiction allows freedom, giving me room to bend reality and arrive at something emotionally true, even if the story itself isn’t real.

My process is rooted in exploration rather than structure. I often begin with a sentence or image I can’t stop thinking about, and the rest of the poem builds around that. I revise in layers- letting the voice, tone, and emotional resonance settle. While writing is often solitary, I’ve learned to value feedback, which helps me see how others experience my work and where clarity or connection might grow.

Ultimately, I write to create emotional worlds. Ones that blur truth and fiction, sound and language, self and story.