Dear Beauty Hunters,
Today’s Let Me Read to You (for April’s National Poetry Month) features two stunning, exquisite, gut-punch-y poems by Katie Farris.
Her new collection, “Standing in the Forest of Being Alive” is a memoir in poems about the author’s cancer diagnosis and treatment during a pandemic and political tumult.
And yet, there it is on every page: beauty, longing, the porch step, a cheap aluminum pot, love, humor, mischief, desire. All of it.
That's what poets do—they take closeup snapshots of the human experience in daily life. A person might pick up the phone and receive news of a death while looking outside at an umbrella of brilliant pink cherry blossoms; the poet captures the moment of the gasping heart *and* the visual delight. Poets remind us how our emotions and experiences are often running into each other. We’re a jumble of contrasting tunes and tones mixing and melding into something almost… unname-able.
Hey! Poets! Thanks for bringing all those gooey un-nameable feelings to life.
And remember: You’re a poet too. Maybe you don’t write poetry; maybe the idea of reading poetry makes you go 🥹😱. But in your own way, ALL of our own ways, we are spinning little bits of beauty out of this here preposterous world.
You might feel, at times, like you’re standing in a forest alone, but your experience is everyone’s.
If you’d like to support Beauty Hunter and join the community, have I got a deal for you 💃🏿. We’d love to have you.
THE NEXT POP-UP SALON IS AROUND THE CORNER
Register for the next pop-up salon: What Is (a) Marriage?
Thursday, April 13, 12 - 1 p.m. PDT. Free to subscribers, all welcome!
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