Neil Hilborn, Poetry We Like.

Poetry We Like

Neil Hilborn 

Written By: Willie Casarez 

Neil Hilborn Is a College National poetry slam champion, and graduate with honors from Macalester College with a degree in creative writing. Neil was a member of the 2011 Macalester Poetry Slam team, which ranked first in the nation at the 2011 College National Poetry Slam. He co-coached the 2012 Macalester team, leading them to a second place finish nationally. He was also a member of the Minneapolis adult National Poetry Slam team in 2011, which placed 5th out of 80 teams from cities across the country at the adult National Poetry Slam. He is the co-founder of Thistle, a Macalester literary magazine, and has run numerous writing workshops with college and high school students. 

Neil Hilborn suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), or behaviors that make them feel driven to do something (compulsions). Neil Hilborn expressed how having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder has affected his life in his poem, "OCD".

In this poem he expresses how his illness began easy to handle in a romantic relationship.

"She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times or if it was Wednesday.
She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk.
When we moved in together, she said she felt safe,
like no one would ever rob us because I definitely locked the door eighteen times."

But later on became a burden.

"She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her.
Some mornings I’d start kissing her goodbye but she’d just leave cause I was
just making her late for work...
When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking...
When she said she loved me her mouth was a straight line.
She told me that I was taking up too much of her time."

In a interview with Neil Hilborn he explained his writing process...

"I write something down, even if it sucks, even it's the worst thing that i've ever written; i write it just to get it out of my head. So you have to write a lot of garbage before you can get to that really gold stuff."

When Neil was asked what his philosophy on writing was he said...

"My Philosophy on writing has always been not to beat yourself up. I spent to long feeling like 'This poems trash, i'm trash and i can't write for S**t.' and that's just not productive. One of the absolute things i've ever done for myself as a writer was forgive myself for not being perfect."

In a poem written "One Color" by Neil Hilborn & Ollie Renee Schminkey, Neil and Ollie touched the topic of Sexual Abuse, Sexual Manipulation and The Fears Of Coming Forward.

This poem was a work of art and a shinning example of poetry collaboration.

Renee: "Yeah, we learned about roofies."

Neil: "We learned to respect when a woman says ‘No.’"

Renee : "We learned about protecting your drink, carrying pepper-spray."

Neil : "We learned what to do when a woman is assaulted."

Both : "But not that this could happen to me."

Neil and Renee make it understood that not all stories are the same. When you listen to the poem, you can feel the emotion hitting you in the chest. The life stories exposed in one poem took a lot of courage to write and read it at the 2013 National Poetry Slam in Boston. Even though the poem didn't make to third place, it doesn't make it any less amazing.

Renee : "They didn't teach me that I wouldn't know how to protect myself."

Both : "That my lungs would close up, and we would make pretend husband and wife,

Make pretend love."

Neil : "The thing about pretend."

Both : "Is that it flattens everything to one color."

Neil : "It makes it too simple."

Renee : "It makes it one syllable."

Both : "And that syllable is always captioned as a ‘yes’."

Neil : "They didn't teach me that I could wanna be with someone, but not always want them."

Renee : "That being curious about sex doesn't mean that I was asking for it."

Both : "What I’d learned."

Neil : "Was that I was supposed to want it."

Renee : "I was supposed to feel stolen; I was supposed to feel like less of a human being."

Neil: "I learned that if you don’t scream."

Both : "No one will listen to you."

Neil : "They don’t write about the ones that got away!"

Neil Hilborn is one of the most influential poets of our time. He amazingly digs into your heart and relates to your deepest darkest fears, He makes you feel better about yourself because he proves that you're not alone in this world.

In Neil Hilborns poem "The Future" a chunk of it stuck to me like super glue.

"I think a lot about killing myself, not like a point on a map, but rather like a glowing exit sign at a show that's never been quite bad enough to make me want to leave. See, when I'm up I don't kill myself because holy shit! there's so much left to do! And when I'm down, I don't kill myself because then the sadness would be over and the sadness is the old paint under the new. I'd still be me without it, but I'd be so boring! "

A lot of us wonder this world feeling alone, feel that we face these problems by ourselves everyday. Neil Hilborn reminds you that you are not alone, that you are worth so much more.
If you ever have a couple hours to yourself, i highly recommend you listen to some or all of Neils poetry.