We were lucky to catch up with Kelsey Bigelow recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kelsey, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
What started as a small risk turned into a life of risking it all to build a life I’m capable of. After my mom died while I was in college, I turned my grief into poetry and risked sharing something deeply personal and raw with classmates. How could I subject my grieving process to critique and possibly hurt myself more?
What I saw as a result, changed the course of my life. Several people said they didn’t realize there was a way to express the complexities of grief or that they didn’t know they needed to hear that poem to better understand their own grief. Therefore, I kept writing through the heat of my emotions to help me process it all and then share it with the world to help others process their stories however they may need.
After college, I moved to Des Moines, found the Des Moines Poetry Slam, and met the founder who signed me up to compete. Mind you, I had never read my poetry on stage before. How could I share my personal story into a microphone to a room full of people I don’t know? What if they didn’t understand it or I didn’t do well in the competition? When I got off stage, I said, “That was absolutely terrifying, and I’m doing it for the rest of my life.” For the first time in my life, I felt seen and listened to. People came up to me afterward expressing their gratitude to me for sharing my story. They told me how they saw themselves in my story and that it healed something for them.
After five years of performing, leading workshops, building a community, and getting paid to do this work part-time, I faced the biggest risk of all. I spent years questioning if I could make it as a professional poet. I often felt unsupported in that big dream and knew it was never a guaranteed career path. But, I hit a low point where my life was unfulfilling. I had been depressed for far too long. So, I quit my corporate 9-5 job to pursue poetry full time. I had built enough savings to buy myself one year of giving it my all to see what happened.
This risk did not come with the support system I expected, but it did show me a host of beautiful people who were excited for me. I put in the work day in and day out, and I have built a foundation for this career unlike anything I ever dreamed. The path is showing itself and is possible. I passed the first year I gave myself, and I don’t have to run back to a corporate 9-5 to keep surviving in this uncommon career path. What a dream!
From one small risk of sharing my raw poetry with classmates to risking a career as a full-time poet, the last 10 years have been full of risks that my instincts knew were the right ones for me.
Kelsey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a poet who found her “why” in the midst of grief.
I went through a lot of hard stuff while growing up — things that no one should ever have to experience. I constantly felt misunderstood and lonely. I often had no idea how I would make it through, but I kept going. Somewhere along the line around 13 or 14 years old, I turned to my notebook and let journaling and writing become my coping tool. I wrote everything I was thinking out on the page, because I knew that no one ever had to read it if I didn’t want them to. It was mine to get out of my head and still keep it private.
By college, I was majoring in writing and took a creative writing class. By then, I found a love for poetry but never shared mine with anyone. We had a poetry unit where I had to start sharing my writing. However, that same semester my mom passed away. That was when my writing changed. It became how I dealt with that grief. Because I shared some of that poetry with my classmates for our assignments, I saw how my words were touching other people’s hearts.
From then on, my writing became about helping others see that someone else is going through the messy and hard stuff too. It’s now how I process a lot of my childhood traumas and current diagnoses. It’s also how I explore the ways I made my life better and how I got myself to a safer, healthier place. Which, in turn, helps others see that things do in fact get better.
And now, that’s what I get to do every day for work. I get to write and perform poetry that helps others feel a little bit less alone in their world. I get to be the person I needed when I was 13. I get to talk with incredible people of all ages and show them that you’re allowed to write your own life. You’re allowed to choose a career path that may look different than what others expect of you. You are allowed to make yourself happy.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson I had to unlearn (and still am unlearning) is that it’s okay to be passionate and excited.
There have been several people at all stages of my life who made it feel unsafe to be seen as excited or “nerding out” about something I’m interested in. I was the quiet rule follower who no one ever had to worry about because I was going to follow the “smart” path in life. But, when no one asks about what you’re interested in, you learn to never speak about it. And when someone does ask about what you’re interested in but then cut you off after the first sentence or two to talk about their own experience, you learn to minimize your response. You learn that they never actually were interested in knowing your heart. So you hide it.
At almost 30 years old, I am deeply unpracticed at gushing about the things I’m passionate about. But I have people in my life now who have shown me that they’re genuinely interested in my full, unfiltered excitement. There are people who ask about me and then ask follow up questions. They must sometimes feel like they’re working to pull the passion out of me in those conversations, but I’m learning how to let myself be seen as excited. They’re showing me that it’s safe to respond in full.
I’m unlearning how to tone myself down and learning how to be seen gushing. I’ve gotta tell you, it’s been a beautiful and freeing lesson to unlearn.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Simply put, society can better support artists by paying our worth. Being in a creative career comes with people who question the monetary value of this work. Much of our energy can be spent explaining our prices and negotiating a fee that still feels fair enough to live off of. It’s common for society to view the arts as something that should only be done for the love of it, not the money. I believe this mindset minimizes the true impact art has on the world.
When people experience hardship, we turn to the arts. We consume music, poetry, art, movies/TV, etc. The arts are a therapeutic tool that helps us cope and process our experiences. We should be paying for creative work in the same way we pay for our other needs through “traditional” work.
The richness of art that we’re exposed to can only grow and deepen if creatives are given the time and space to pay our bills while being able to create.
Contact Info:
- Website: kelkaybpoetry.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelkaybpoetry/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelkaybpoetry
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelkayb/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/kelkaybpoetry
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kelseybigelow
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kelkaybpoetry
Image Credits
Janet Eckles, Ashton Jordan, Matt Tupper, Poets & Pints