welcome. hello.
I’m so glad you’re here with me, for the March full moon, aka the Worm Moon. I sent my first Open Language missive on the Worm Moon of March 2023, so-named because it’s the time of year when earthworms begin to appear. It’s been a year—from earthworm season to earthworm season—of this newsletter! Thank you so much to those of you who’ve been reading this whole time, and to those of you who joined and continue to join along the way. This year has been one of tremendous growth, challenge and change. Last Saturday, in a culminating offering at the Brooklyn Public Library’s “Out of Darkness” Night in the Library, I lay down with hundreds of other participants in the rotunda of the Central Library on Grand Army Plaza at midnight, and entered into the experience of death via a meditation led by Lama Justin von Bujdoss. I felt/imagined the solidness of my body becoming water, evaporating into a connection with all space and time. It was momentary and sweet, and eased a part of me that was holding on to a lot of fear. A few days later, in the final meeting of my FIRE SIDE writing workshop, participants wrote enthusiastically in response to a Mei-mei Berssenbrugge poem, and then burned what they wrote, a letting go that was a reminder of our human condition. We wrote new poems from the ashes—interacting tactilely with the feel and smell and possibility of ash. I return as often as I’m able to ritual, to these small moments that change us, that change conditions, connections, and intentions. It’s my hope that this letter, and the services I offer, continue to provide space for you to move with more ease, more aliveness, more confidence, creativity and compassion.
It’s been my honor to witness so much growth and change in my coaching clients this year. People have come to me for help taking the next steps they want: finding their writing voice, centering creative practices, finding pathways through grief, changing careers to something more meaningful, working with and through self-consciousness and other embodied fears, visioning strategic business and publicity moves, continuing and finishing large projects that were wavering, and more. And in my workshops, writers and poets have connected, crafted, and created heart-expanding texts. I’m inspired by all of you. It’s an honor and expansion to help facilitate these moves towards greater aliveness, greater connection to self, others and world, and ultimately greater capacity to tune in to the wisdom we already possess that we access through attention to our bodies and minds. If you’re new to this list, and curious about how to work with me, I provide support to writers and artists through private somatic coaching sessions, workshops like the upcoming spring generative writing workshop, and limited manuscript consultations.
tiny review
In the last month, I read only one book in full, and I loved it. Simone White’s or, on being the other woman (2022, Duke University Press) brilliantly integrates theory into poetics (“If I am writing a script, it is a script for performance of the intellectual status of the art professional / If it is an epistle, it travels no distance / because of the way you are with me and yet are not of this world”). This is a book-length poem about being. It’s a book about other, and it’s a book about woman. The romantic relationship suggested by the title feels like a ghost in a book about self-making. The speaker’s complex relationship to trap music (“the snakiness of the synth, it grows / Or builds out the foundational response of the nerves’ impact with the initial boom”) is as palpable as any relationship (“I closet myself in order to protect you”). The collection is modal, modular, conversational and noisy. It’s re-humanizing. I had a false start reading it - in my initial resistance I felt my body become a wall (“nestled / lumped or thrown together we and things”), and put the book down. I wasn’t in the right mindset for White’s intimacy (“no man has ever not tried to steal from me”) and depth. A few days later, I tried again, softened and submerged into the text, one that is so uniquely itself (“works having vectors operational vibrations outside their physical presentation”). It’s a call for us all to create and live in this fully embodied (“dancing is not an endorsement of violence but of course it is”), complex, courageous way.
tiny ritual
In Theophylline: A Poetic Migration, the newest collection by Erín Moure, they consider the act of witnessing and write, “To ‘witness’ is to bear the weight and agony of a heard story into your core, so that your next acts are infused and altered...you must change your life.” I have this quote stuck on a note where I can see it, and have been reflecting on it for months now. There is truth to this call for us to witness. And with state-sanctioned violence and repression of rights here in the USA, and with genocides, wars, famine, and climate change globally, there is (too) much for us to witness. To take agony into our core is not a casual ask. Some folks go to great lengths to avoid witnessing that which is right in front of them, while others sacrifice their entire well-being in an overcommitment to the agony of bearing witness. Dimensions of power and privilege are at play, as well as all sorts of layers of personal orientations and aptitudes.
My brain isn’t great at visualizing things, but I’m trying to hold a vision of boundaries and porousness—I’m thinking gauze, not concrete. Boundaries are protective, but must also remain porous. What do you truly need to hold close, avoid, or let go of to stay well and self-protect? What can you move towards with more courage and care, and how? How permeable are your boundaries? Where have you, perhaps, been over-boundaried, and where have you been too open? Do you need more or less rigidity? How does this connect, for you, to witnessing?
I believe in the call to always take care of what’s in front of you, and I try to be conscientious about what I put in front of me to take care of. I aim to make ritual of witnessing, to create physical time and emotional space to take in others’ stories of suffering, to listen, cry, scream, move, gather, share, talk. Here’s how I see this ritual. First, get clear on your intention—what is calling for your attention? Then, truly turn your attention to it. I’m not talking about mindless scrolling. Seek the source(s) that will bring you closest to truth(s), especially those you’ve been avoiding. Breathe and observe as you witness. What is happening in your own body and mind? What do you see and hear being communicated to you? What can you not see/hear/know? Finally, ask now what? Meditate on, or write into, the question. As we individually build our capacity to witness, we build our collective capacity to act.
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Writing prompt: Take a walk, or otherwise move your body, through outside space. Imagine your boundaries like like gauze, present but porous. Every block or every minute, physically touch an object. Write a line. Keep moving. Repeat. Reflect on what you let in, and what you kept out.
offerings & news
I can help you take that next step that you’ve been hesitant to take. Learn more about mind-body coaching with me here. Book at the link, or email me with any questions or to set up your first session.
SEEDS: a generative spring workshop, this May! Details & sign up here
I continue to offer reflective manuscript consultations, primarily (but not exclusively) to poets who have a collection drafted, and want some critical direction. I have six openings for this summer (June-August). It’s good to get the conversation started, and a slot booked early! Learn more, and check out testimonials here.
I’m making some changes in my professional life, folks. Paid subscribers help me sustain the work of writing these monthly reviews and rituals, and your support is needed. If you’re getting something out of these monthly missiles, please become a paid subscriber. My goal is to reach 40 paid subscribers this spring. I’m 30% there.
My friends are up to good things:
It’s Women’s History Month and POWERHOUSE, a residency space for Black women and women of color, is in fundraising mode, and is open for applications. I’m a proud Board member, and even prouder to share that your donation will be matched by a generous anonymous donor!!! Please support our goal to raise $24,000 to support our ever-growing list of amazing artists.
Barricade is publishing a vital Solidarity with Palestine series. Check out these four poems by Olivia Elias, in translation by Jérémy Victor Robert.
Alex Cuff's Common Amnesias is now available for order from Ugly Duckling Presse. I’ve been watching this collection evolve and digest for years, and am overjoyed to now be holding a copy. Shira Erlichman calls it “A dizzying marathon through the taboo, the shamed, the disgusting…simultaneously tender & voracious.”
Laura Henriksen's recently released Laura's Desires (Nightboat Books) is next on my reading list. Simone White (see tiny review, above) calls it “writing without ego, writing out of giving or generosity…a beautiful, gentle, and fiercely intelligent book, of our time and for us.”
Lucy, Anna Gurton Wachter’s chaplet newly released from Belladonna*, is available here. Written “mostly at 4am while trying to breastfeed a little tiny human watching I Love Lucy episodes… and being completely mesmerized in a weird trance by Lucille Ball” - it sounds like a dream! Can’t wait for my copy to arrive!
sending love,
emily