FLORA’s POETRYA Casual Talk

Poetry is a lighter part of my creative journey. For me, poetry is simply a conversation – sometimes with words, sometimes without. While painting requires persistent practice, poetry has been with me since childhood. I was “speaking poetry” as a child and started writing seriously when I was 15. In my youth, I published poems in cultural and student magazines. But over time, something changed. I stopped seeing poetry as something serious and began treating it as a daily habit – a way to react to life. Now, writing poetry feels as natural as slipping on running shoes when you feel stiff. I do it for the joy of it, with no pressure or need for perfection.

Because of that, I stopped keeping my poems a long time ago. I usually write them lying on the sofa, gazing at the sky and the river in the distance when I have nothing else to do. Or when one of my staff has just gone through a breakup. Or when an old college friend has divorced. Or maybe when my beloved cat falls from the balcony and dies. It could even happen while I’m painting in the garden. Whenever it happens, I don’t try too hard – it’s as simple as telling myself, or having someone tell me: Write a poem! And just like that, I do. Most of the time, people around me remember or save my poems better than I do.

A few months ago, I stumbled across one of my old poems online – it felt like running into an old friend. That moment made me realize it might not be a bad idea to gather them all together. For the first time, I made an effort to collect them here, piecing together fragments of the past that I never intended to keep. It hasn’t been easy, but it feels right to share these poems now, in one place.