Interview: April Green

April Green

by Danielle Holian

“Writing has always been a passion for me and from a young age,” April Green says, “I was surrounded by books, poetry, and journals.” However, when she was recovering from breast cancer many years later, she discovered writing became a way of healing and learning how to ‘live in the moment,’ stating, “it is so very important, especially for women. There are so many lifestyle diseases that we don’t think about until we are forced to.”

When she was young, her influences ranged from Sylvia Plath to Franz Kafka, she describes her younger days of writing as ‘dark’. And since her days of qualifying in Reiki and studying Buddhism, she obsesses over Osho, Rumi, Genevieve Behrend and Florence Scovel Shinn. She adores metaphysical writers stating, “You are what you think”. She believes happiness is a choice saying, “The philosophy of the power of positive thinking is so very critical in recovering from lifestyle diseases. Pushing past a false belief, to be able to become what you think about is hard work; but it is a habit that can be learned and developed.”

Green describes her pieces as ‘broken and clipped, like wings’ as they are short and fragmented. She likes micro-poetry; keeping the structure simple. “There is something so very beautiful, in my opinion, about a single sentence which evokes a storm in your bones – like holding a memory or a moment, in your hands,” she states that a single sentence moves and takes her somewhere in a similar way a piece of music can. She expresses her love for haikus as they are both simple yet complex “there is always a deeper meaning to them if you look close enough.” This element of writing makes it interesting for her as she tries to put an ‘emotional’ message into seventeen syllables.

She conveys the importance in having a meaning behind her work as she wants to help people. She reveals, “I have broken myself many times in the search for happiness, but it really does come from within.” She voices finding passion from within and letting go of what is consuming. She wants her followers to know there will always be something to carry you along no matter how bad things seem.

Green’s writing has evolved since she joined Twitter from being tied to 140 characters. She has been pushing herself to write the best of 140 characters. She self-taught herself elements of Photoshop to produce her artwork for her Paper Wings book last year, evolving her artistic side. She writes with a healing passion. She wanted to show her creative progression with her second collection of poetry this time around. She recounts the books as a “lyrical journey through depression, love, grief and then healing.” Going on to explain about wanting the readers to feel her journey and “they too can overcome depression and ill health; if only they would love themselves and find a passion that comes from their very soul.”

Recently, she has developed a blog which will be live in the New Year, and writes on Twitter and Instagram daily. Her blog will center around healing, focusing on self-care, finding a passion, embracing that passion and creating daily rituals to ensure that passion is nurtured.  

Leaving a piece of advice for fellow writers would be to write every day, continuing on, “Find a word and use it as a prompt, or find two words, but don’t use them in the poem – look up the synonyms and use them instead.” She expresses the importance of spending time alone, listening to silence as this is where emotions hide.

She signed the interview off with. . .

don’t leave this earth
with words still inside you.
songs unsung.
canvasses untouched.

–  what if?