For me, it’s never just about writing songs;
it’s about seeking my own truth
and having something to say about it.
Oh, hello there! Thanks for stopping by my site.
I’m Gnocchi Artyst, the poet who sings pointed stories.
I live in West Queen West, the art and design district of Toronto, Canada.
This website is for the songs and poems I’ve written. I’m self-taught and hardly think of myself as a musician. I started writing songs in Sep 2018, having learned only a few chords, one strumming pattern, and one picking pattern. But one uses what one’s got, and sometimes interesting things are born from limitation.
Well, I didn’t think of myself as a poet, either, for that matter. But a couple of weeks ago (Oct 2019) I went to Italy, and my former art teacher there called me a poet. I said, “I’m not a poet.” He said, “You are.” And I thought about it. I’d written 80 poems since last September, so yeah, maybe I am a poet!
It’s rather funny, really, because before that I’d always admired my mom for her ability to write poems on the fly (in Vietnamese), and wished I could be like her! I’d always been puzzled by how one could fit one’s ideas into those little lines that rhyme. And then last September, I tried to write one short poem, it wasn’t easy, but it was okay. Then I wrote another one, and they just came to me more and more. Inspiration came with the doing.
I now can answer that question of how one can fit one’s ideas into those neat little lines. Well, you don’t first have ideas and then try to fit them in, that’s just too hard. You let your ideas happen within the context of the lines and the rhyme, let them lead you to strange places you didn’t expect to find. It’s quite fun! And besides, I’m not strict on rhyme, or form either. Just like I don’t really follow musical rules. Whatever makes sense to me is what I go with.
My songs and poems are a type of journal that I’m keeping. And for some reasons, which I don’t entirely understand, I feel the need to share them with the world. I hope the effort will not be futile, or worse, narcissistic.
Well, I can’t worry too much about that while I’m doing this. The only thing that really concerns me when writing these songs and poems is to keep them true. And I leave the rest to the world.
So here it goes, one song/poem at a time. Each one is a journey into the heart. Never know what I will find.
Oct 21, 2019
Gnocchi Artyst
Visit my art website at: GnocchiArtyst.com