when we first met, i stood two decades tall, bald, and barefoot on the bed, and wrote poems on the wall.
for those of you who have been following along with the yama series, don’t worry, this week’s offering on the last yama will be out soon~
in the meantime, i have some exciting news! i will be reading in the Phoebe + So to Speak virtual series this Thursday, June 8th at 6pm CT.
there is something magical about reading aloud. you can feel it most dramatically when reading to children—the words build momentum and then something clicks and suddenly they drop into another world with you.
but you can even feel it alone too. one of the best ways i know to revise my work is to read whatever i’ve written out loud. to let my ears do the work my eyes can’t.
the still remember first time i read any of the words in Beneath The Break out loud. it was about two years ago.
it was early summer and the city was hot and freshly greened. i was sprawled with one of my dearest friends on a lawn in South Minneapolis. we were talking about our families and writing and life and things that made us smile recently. as we talked we wrapped grass around our fingers and tied dandelion stems together and snapped sticks and lined them up in little ordered rows. conversations that leave these sorts of physical remnants have always been my most treasured.
before we crawled into our too hot cars to return to the rest of our days and “real lives” we read our work. closed the circle of connection with things we were creating.
i read a couple short paragraphs off an iPhone note. the nerves in my voice caught me off guard—this is someone who knows almost every single thing that’s ever happened to me, someone who already knew the facts of everything i was speaking—and yet, the vulnerability of hearing my own words in my own voice speaking something that i could feel already had its own heartbeat was surprisingly powerful.
powerful enough to convince me to keep writing.
excited and nervous to have the chance to speak some of those words out loud again.
i’d love to (virtually) see you there! find out more and register for a free ticket here.
Hi! I love reading your yoga and self-exploration focused Substack. I have subscribed to yours and would love to invite you to subscribe to mine, which features yoga poems from my manuscript, A Poem for Every Pose. If you are interested, here is the link to a recent poem about Heroes Pose— https://open.substack.com/pub/coriefeiner/p/be-your-own-hero-pose?r=1vl0c8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web