When Plants & Poetry Invite You

into conversations with the world

Hi friends,

I’ve been writing a lot of poetry this month, and over the weekend I printed out over 100 poems to shape into a manuscript.

Yes — a book!

I’ve shared this with a few people I’m close with, but writing it here feels both exciting and…scary? It’s always vulnerable to declare something before it’s actually done. I’ve had plenty of times where I say something too soon and then it doesn’t happen. I still remember our third year of farming when I publicly shared: We’re planting an acre of blueberries for a pick-your-own operation! Only to end up not doing that.

Yet as I write this I realize how the things that didn’t come to fruition as I’d once imagined weren’t failures…they were shifts. Isn’t life always shifting? Isn’t being alive being in conversation with the world?

Sunflower in half-bloom. How I often feel!

Plants and poetry invite us into that conversation in creative and surprising ways.

Often, when I’m feeling stuck or anxious or overwhelmed, I go outside and do a little weeding, or I pull a book off the shelf and flip open to a poem. Farming and reading have taught me that I don’t have to have all the answers. I just have to engage, to ask the question, to be open, and then to listen. Answers tend to sprout up from the soil or from lines of poems.

Today I’m sharing a poem of poems with you.

I wrote this in response to

Kaitlin Curtice

‘s prompt “a good book” — which made me think of how often a book or poem has helped me in some way. Writing this poem brought me into conversation with some of my favorite lines and poets:

What The Poet Said

“Look, we are not unspectacular things,” said Ada
as James noticed how “our grief gave off a slight glimmer”
Jess held your hands with “the dirt of your motherland
unapologetic beneath your nails,” and when you didn’t 
know what to do next, Cathryn said
“the seeds remember everything they need”
So you gave yourself to the soil
“The dark will be your womb tonight,” said David
as Mary whispered, “imagine! imagine! the long and
wondrous journeys still to be ours”
And all those words turned like 
compost inside you, revitalizing
until you found your voice again
clear and beautiful and buoyant
and when you sang, January was there
reaching out to you,
coffee in hand, saying 
“Let us take this joy to go”

Here are the poems these lines come from:

• Dead Stars, by Ada Limon

• Made Visible, by

  James Crews

• You Are Inseparable, by

  Jess Housty

• Summer Apples, by Cathryn Essinger

• Sweet Darkness, by

  David Whyte

• Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me, by Mary Oliver

• In the Company of Women, by

  January Gill O'Neil

---

Poetry Pop-up Shop Coming Soon!

I don’t know how long it will be before my manuscript becomes an actual book, but I can tell you I’m preparing the Poetry Pop-up Shop to open again soon!

You’ll find prints of some well-loved favorites, including Gather Together and Sustenance, along with new poems like Open Door.

Is there a poem you’d love to have as a print? Let me know!

In love and poetry,

Katie