Two definitions currently in need of reconciliation: artist and mother.
My daughter holds my hand, her small fist tightly gripping my index finger.
“Love you toever, Mama”.
“Love you toever, angel baby”.
To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn…
I live a fragmented life.
I’ve come to believe that fragments can be enough.
What does this mean - a fragmented life?
I do not fold and put away the laundry in one day.
I do not eat a meal sitting down for its duration.
I do not take a shit alone (although, by god, I try).
I do not write a full page (or a full poem) in a single sitting.
Fragments, small sentences, tiny weavings - these are poems enough for me. They must be, in this phase of life I’m in. It is in these fragments that I find lost things: thoughts, pieces of myself, old loves, past lives.
‘Enough’ is subjective and feels a lot like God to me these days. It is what’s on hand, that which is accessible, sprinkled with imagination. This understanding and it’s subsequent integration is spirit food.
And so, Spirit Food is born. An exploration of fragments, of simplicity, of identities of artist & mother, of enough. Welcome to first draft central. Welcome to half baked ideas. Welcome to the unfinished, the brief, the child’s/beginner’s mind. There will be cento, midnight post-it prose, posies from the backyard, half essays, crayon drawings, smart phone photos, and other patchworked odds and ends.
Welcome, mothers and caregivers, poets and artists. May the spirit food be ample, may it be enough, and may it be a sort of sustenance.
let’s make something together…
If this definition of enough strikes a cord, perhaps you’ll join my poetry mentor and friend Holly Wren Spaulding and I in Lines for the Common.
This one-off workshop explores the art of cento, commonplacing, and enhancing your creative practice by working with what is on hand. You will learn various practices for expanding your imagination, how to design a comonplace book, write a poem or two, and leave with an invitation to make alongside us during the month of April. This workshop is $30 and takes place Wednesday, March 27th from 1-2PM EST.
I will be back in your inbox with a full moon missive next week, but wanted to take a moment to share the above offering, as well as this change within my creative practice. I am so grateful for what The Poetry Journals has offered me, the community that has grown under its wings. After feeling stagnant and confused for many months, I feel reinvigorated by Spirit Food and these new parameters I’m leaning into. I hope you’ll stay, and continue to share your creative stirrings, writings, photo poems, etc. It has been a joy being in conversation with you… I look forward to what’s ahead.
Wishing you a grounded entrance into spring.
With forsythia,
Kat
Beau ti ful. What every mother discovers, what every person needs: permission to put life together in pieces.
Especially excited for those midnight post-it’s, my friend. Thank you for giving us all the permission for our fragments to be enough.