Everyone has a favorite song. Each person has a genre of music that inspires them. Maybe it is an old song, that when you hear it again, your mind is flooded with memories, good, bad, happy, painful, sorrowful…

Why not use that inspirational music for you to write new poetry (or prose)? Anything really. You can use that song that brings you back to your childhood to draw on the memories of growing up, friendships, or that thing that happened and forever altered your life at such a young age.

Use the music, what it makes you feel, the memories it draws out to write. Writing is a powerful tool for processing and for resolving old wounds, past disappointments, or similar problems that you have a hard time “finding” within you. As you listen to the song, think about your feelings and emotions that come out of you. Write down whatever memory comes to mind from that song. Then think about why it has impacted your life in this way. Write about what happened and what you would have done differently or what you wished would have happened instead. If it is a hurt caused by someone, acknowledge the wound and then release the person so that you can go free.

I have an old favorite album that many of you likely will never have heard of before. I like those types of albums, obscure, and I feel like I am the only one who knows of this “best kept secret” band. I could be totally off and a lot of you do know this band/album, but we’ll see.

Of the next few days I will be posting some original poetry inspired by the music below. I have pre-selected some of my favorite songs from the album as inspiration for my poetry.

United Pursuit Band is a Christian worship collective/group from Nashville, Tennessee that meets in old houses or churches and mics up the entire place and then a group of 30 or 40 people sing together, mostly spontaneous worship songs. Oftentimes, they livestream the worship session and almost always record it.

Out of these sessions, this album I am sharing below came. It is called, “Garden” and it was released in 2018, a few months before I separated from my wife. At the time, I didn’t realize that it would be such a meaningful and powerful album in my life. You can stream the entire album on YouTube here: