I decided I wanted to try to record myself reading the poems that I had been writing each day for National Poetry Month.
I have seen several poets sharing videos of themselves reading their poems and enjoyed hearing their poetry in their voices.
I spend time on “camera” for work meetings, especially now that we are working virtually. So I am not too shy about having my face seen.
But what I have struggled with is being on camera when I read my “dark” poems about my childhood abuse or the effects that abuse has had on me into adulthood.
I know eventually I will get to a point where reading my poems on camera might be doable, but for now I didn’t want my fear of falling apart on camera keep me from sharing my voice.
I receive a “Poem a Day” in my inbox. It comes with a transcript of the poem and also an audio recording of the poet reading their poem.
I thought, “I can do that! I can record my voice!” Especially knowing it would be simple to re-record myself if I got too emotional during a recording.
My husband has a fancy mic for recording himself playing guitar, and serenading the cat. But I was hoping to keep it simple.
So I found the recording app that came with my phone, and inspired by Brené Brown’s first episode of her podcast Unlocking Us, I plopped myself down in the master closet and started reading my poems I had printed out.
Here is a video of the home recording studio:
I bought Camtasia software over the holidays last year, so I decided to install it and try my hand at editing. It actually turned out to be easy and intuitive.
And since I am a photographer, I couldn’t just make an audio recording and leave it at that. I had to incorporate images and sometimes video clips. Often the photographs are my own, which makes the videos even more special.
I hope you will check out my Thriving After YouTube channel and listen to my poems!
