Hi everyone,
Welcome to 365 Days of Poetry & Honesty. I hope this week has been kind to you <3
Not much to say today, well actually I think I’ve got too much to say and it's a little overwhelming. So instead I’ll leave with you an invitation to a poetry night I’m hosting on Tuesday 19th April at a magical place called Reference Point in Central London. It starts at 8pm, and we’ll either be looking at healing or sensuality, but both will be in relation to nature! So come along and bring your own poems or the work of poets that move you :)
Hope to see you there!
Here are my songs of the week:
Monday
I’ve been thinking about loneliness this week, my loneliness in particular, and I wrote this poem as a promise to myself.
Tuesday
I started this poem during a poetry night I hosted on the 12th April. We were looking at nature, and the reference was this beautifully collated book of essays and poems on Nature by women writers called ‘Sisters of the Earth’. And the poem I wrote, the first draft, I was worried that it was too fatalistic, and since then, I’ve come to embrace it because at the end of day we are in a a climate crisis, and I think imagined futures, the hyperbolic language, maybe dystopian, it forces us to reckon with what could be, and I mean look at the Flint Water crisis, it's terrifying and it's the world we’re living in.
Wednesday
I was thinking about ‘Wild Geese’ by Mary Oliver when I started this poem, in fact the last stanza is mostly composed of her words. And the first line, I think it's true in the sense that conception, as it's happening inside a birthing body, it's in the dark. And seeds, you bury them in the soil, and when it's time, they come bursting through the surface looking for light, but that beginning, it happens in the dark. And that's something I want to remember because it helps me to make sense of it all.
Thursday
I was thinking about the first boy I ever kissed, and how it felt like a light switching on in my body. It was a transformative summer, and even though sometimes it feels like my life is falling apart, I think me at 16 would be happy to see who i’ve become.
Friday
Trigger warning for suicidal ideation. Friday was really difficult, and maybe because it was my solar return, everything was more intense, but I made it through it and I want to remember that what at the heart of it, I’m looking for acceptance, but that's something I have to give to myself before I can really feel it.
Saturday
A love poem followed by what you could maybe call an anti-love poem?
Sunday
Happy Easter ! Two poems for you today, the first poem by Danusha Laméris & the second Patrick Kavanagh.
Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter. Let me know your thoughts on the poems ❤️
With love,
Phoenix