Belladonnaoflavender - Ended 2022 with a lot to learn
Hi, I will always appreciate you connecting with me through my virtual hugs. Hugs can be morbid, weird, and suffocating too. But most of the times, my words will never be just mine- I strive to share stories, poems, words that make a difference in all possible art forms- Hi everyone! 2022 was wild. In so many unfamiliar ways. I was asked in many ‘gatherings’ that I have been a part of since my return from a very adventurous trip down south in Dec that how my winter vacation was, and it was a word for me- ‘retreat’ and three, ‘The Watering Hole’. If you wanted an essay, you subscribed to this newsletter. And so here we go. In bits and pieces, as always. In a manic, I tell you but also what. The things I learned and discovered at The Watering Hole were absolutely bonkers for a girl from Bihar. The kind of diversity (all POC) it had and the kind of wisdom, tips, and workshops we underwent—I say underwent because I felt like a part of my brain was lobotomized before I met my kindred spirits, who made me double up in less than a week. A week that shall not be forgotten in the annals of learning and bonding. I wrote haikus like my parallel universe in Wiachin would. I wrote many golden shovels, never dreaming that I would be doing one on Vikram Seth’s All those who sleep tonight (one of my favorite poems ever) in McCormick County, which is a white county, and I was a brown girl writing poems with my black sisters and brothers. We laughed, we cried, we wrote, we slammed, and we all taught each other a lot. A lot. Some of the people that I met and admired were those who brought us all together, Candace Wiley, a woman of steel. Dasan Ahanu (Chair), Jay Ward (Vice Chair), Angelo "Eyeambic" Geter (Secretary), Joyce Rose-Harris (Community Relations), Rahsaan Louris, and all the other facilitators are some of the best people I have come to know. I lived in a cabin in the middle of a forest park in the southern wilderness of the USA, traversing the wildlands with Lydia (someone whom I had briefly known before), and the Detroit gal Catalina was the perfect post-Christmas present to wind up the year in the wilderness of South Carolina’s Hickory Knob State Park and Resort. I met some amazing people (some I had only known virtually and would have never crossed paths with, and that thought makes me shudder), and that takeaway was the biggest giveaway of 2022. My soul was as high as a fly at the end of the year, cocooned in the presence of poets who knew what it took and what it had to be. The core purpose is to cultivate and inspire kinship between poets of color from all spoken and written traditions, thus creating a tribe with a mutual focus on poetics and craft-building. The Watering Hole was created as a Facebook group by fellows of the Cave Canem South Workshops in 2009 and 2010. If you are a poet at a stage where you need a tribe, apply for The Tribe of Your Life. Even if not this, I hope you all have the opportunity to engage in various forms of education and learning. There is no one right way to do anything in life. I always feel like telling myself, again and again, that I am here unbeknownst to me. I don’t know where I will be. But, I like you, wish it to be fruitful and happy.
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Key phrases
Older messages
November of -
Friday, December 2, 2022
looking forward
Smudging Boundaries
Friday, September 30, 2022
Reading at a cafe in Iowa & other brags
MFA
Tuesday, August 23, 2022
A Full Circle
And I am In Iowa
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
A place I could only dream of to be writing from & in
De conditioning
Sunday, July 10, 2022
more than just a word | links-recommendations
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