Being in a moment of expansion and contraction simultaneously is a complicated and thoughtful space to be. I find myself turning to the camera to capture and chronicle our world- even if I always see it as clearly as I may appear to from the photographic capture I share with you here.
With tenacity and fervor I have been writing more and more poetry with greater ease and clarity as well as submitting often to journals, contests and the like. I participated in my first public poetry reading this week. After the poem, a woman in the audience came up to me, tearful. “I am a birth-mother, ” she said. “I placed my daughter for adoption when I was 17. Your poem gave voice to my experience with a truth I have never heard in a poem before.”
I left the reading, racing home, tearful too and in the dark reminded that art heals, enlightens, bridges, sustains, and connects all at once.
I first found your blog in my early twenties, and I’m unsure as to what compelled me to start following. I was young, had no children, adoption wasn’t a factor in my life, my life was fairly essentially foreign to yours. But I suppose I was interested in families, and the creation of them, and I think I was totally interested in the story of a single mum who desperately wanted these two children, and to raise them to be unique, loved individuals.
I’m thirty now, and honestly, I’m so thankful that I did start to follow, because you’re a poet in both prose and poetry (if that makes sense). You write so well. You write with a starkness that carries to the very element of what you’re writing about. I’m always glad to receive notifications of an update of yours, because you make me think, however briefly, of my surroundings in a poetic way.
If ever you want to share more of your poetry or your published work, this is just to let you know that there are those who’ll SO enjoy reading them!
This comment is so powerful to read today. (I only saw it today. My word!). Thank you so very much.