Beauty Q & A With Ann Teplick
That smack upside the head by a crow
Ann Teplik is a gift to humanity. She teaches poetry to young people in psychiatric units, juvenile detention, hospitals, and hospice centers—offering creative discovery, a reprieve, and a beautiful shimmer of hope.
I met Ann Teplick 20 years ago when I volunteered at the After School Creative Writing Program she co-created at Seattle’s Hugo House. From day one, I was struck by her exuberance, warmth, a pixie-ish delight in all things, and a wild love for the process of unraveling a story through writing. Over the years, I’ve marvelled at how Ann can work so intimately with young people facing massive disadvantages, in tragic circumstances, and keep herself together. “I think I’d lose my shit and cry all over the place,” I’ve stated, feebly. Ann always answered by giving the young artists she works with credit for what they’re doing.
I asked Ann about her view of Beauty, and whether Beauty can exist for those riding in life’s more turbulent waves. We don’t want to sugar coat beauty here!
Enjoy Ann, her prose-poetry answers, and her sparkle-sparkle. I want to use her Beauty definition as Directions for Living.
Beauty Hunter: How would you define “Beauty”?
Ann: As a lover of lists and white space, here is my stream:
Beauty is the cardinal that sips an icicle on the branch of a snowy fir. It’s the striated circles on the coat of the coyote that visits you night after night. It’s the cumulous cloud that melts from elephant to pelican to sea otter as the wind sails it north. It’s the field of purple clover that tickles your neck when you lie there to sky watch and dream.
Beauty is curiosity and inquiry. Our drive to figure things out for ourselves. Our knowing when to ask for help.
It’s our inventiveness, our willingness to think outside of the box or other geometric shapes we are coaxed to squeeze into. It’s our authenticity.
Taking risks when the stakes are high, is beauty. As well as, the fear that accompanies this. It’s the Fall Down-and Pick-Yourself-Up ethic.
Beauty is our human capacity to love. It’s the times we are patient with one another. Our ability to slow down and listen. It’s our search for common ground.
Beauty is compassion for others and for ourselves.
It’s vulnerability. The cracking open of hearts to let our yolk spill, no matter how sticky.
It’s the consistency of showing up, being accountable, when maybe we don’t want to.
Beauty is seeking community and working in collaboration to benefit others.
It’s the courage it takes to lift our voices and speak our truths.
Beauty is humor when we least expect it, like that smack upside the head by a crow. Maybe I should have started here?
Tell us more about the amazing work you’ve done over the years.
For the past twenty-four years, I’ve been a teaching artist writing poetry with youth in hospitals, psychiatric units, juvenile detention, and hospice centers.
This work, in its beauty and challenge, has anchored and humbled me. It has taught me to listen without judgment, and with a depth I had never known. It’s helped me to recognize my own vulnerabilities and not be ashamed. The work has graced me with an abundance of gratitude. Each youth I write with becomes my teacher and imparts bits of wisdom I couldn’t have arrived at on my own.
I believe that self-expression through the arts helps us make sense of this big, mystifying and messy world, and our place in it. I have witnessed poems that speak trauma in its rawest truth and chew ink off the page. I have also witnessed poems of joy. I’ve seen the posture of young writers straighten by the end of a session with relief, satisfaction, and pride to have named something on paper that maybe they never had. I know that a poem is the perfect vessel to hold emotions and feelings. I’ve unpacked my life in this way since second grade and I continue to do so.
What has drawn you to the kind of work you do with young people in juvenile detention and the psychiatric ward?
We are all storytellers with important stories to tell. The world needs them. When we share our stories, we make connections, which allows us to better understand and open our hearts to one another. I believe hearts that are open strengthen the circle of our human family. I’ve long been an advocate for voices that are too often overlooked. Thus, my draw to facilities and institutions where lives are often extra delicate and extra complicated.
In the Beauty Salons, we often discuss whether Beauty is a privilege or something that exists everywhere, available to everyone, all the time. How do you see Beauty as existing in the work you do, with the people you work with?
Seeking and finding beauty may be strenuous for those who struggle. I am always cognizant of this. I believe beauty exists for everyone, but we come to it on our own terms and timeliness.
How is Beauty necessary to daily life among people having a really hard go of it?
Beauty equals hope. Hope equals a reason to keep placing that left foot in front of the right, be it baby or giant steps, which may become a skip or a gallop. Who knows? It’s the forward motion.
How do you keep Beauty alive?
Each morning I ask myself: What am I going to learn today? I’m intrigued with the mystery. I’m excited to see what unfurls. I look for the smallest of the smallest moments and make sure I note them. I practice being mindful by trying to slow my pace and pay attention.
This summer, a ten-year-old in one of my writing classes showed me his new mini-pocket microscope, the size of my thumb. He wanted to look at my hangnails and the fingerprints on my left pinkie. Which led him to pilot the class on a one-block spin to experience invisible cracks in concrete, the tiniest of holes in the bark of a cedar tree, baby bugs caught in spider webs that hung on chain-link fences, the thorns of baby nettles, and more. Universes that were new and fascinating to me. And what about a mosey where we set out to notice sounds, scents, and textures? I do this, too.
What is a great reason to be alive—for all of us?
We’re here but for a few fleeting moments. What can we grow? What can we harvest? How can we love? How can we be of service?
🐞🐞🐞🐞
Ann Teplic is a writer; mixer-upper; around-the-clock asker of questions; lover of kindness, nature, animals, and humans—this big beautiful, messy planet. Holder of hope.
Here are a few things Ann loves:
World of Wonders | Milkweed Editions Aimee Nezhukumatathil
The Book of Delights — by Ross Gay
The Salon for Beauty Hunters is back, and we’re going to put our attention on Humor, Play & Fun. Imagine if that sweet trinity made it to the top of your to-do list?
We gather in my Zoom room on Fridays, starting October 7, 12 - 1 pm Pacific USA time, and go until the first Friday of December.
More deets at Join a Salon!, at Everyday Creative. XOXO