Between Mothers: A Poem for Lady Diana

Thank you Tweetspeak Poetry--somewhere during the whirl and slog of getting the kids dressed and ready for school, I scanned an email from Poetry Editor Richard Maxson announcing that She Dressed in a Hurry, for Lady Di went out to subscribers of Tweetspeak’s Everyday Poems (a list for which you receive poems to your inbox for the cost of a large latte: $5.99 for an entire year’s worth of poems). Here’s the link with more specific information about how you can subscribe if you wish: Tweetspeak’s Every Day Poems. 

And here’s a link to the site at large: Tweetspeak Poetry. I’m grateful to L.L. Barkat and her loving way of engaging poets in conversation and play; I’m also grateful to Glynn Young for taking the time to review November Butterfly. 

My poetry movie collaborator Robyn and I made a movie back in 2002 for She Dressed in a Hurry (under three minutes in length). My father plays piano while Robyn’s incredible micro-world images slide by. You can also write to a prompt based on the poem and poetry movie I wrote up during book tour year, November Butterfly Prompt 7.

I also want to thank Salome Magazine  online for publishing the poem originally and finally Saddle Road Press for publishing it as part of my first collection, November Butterfly. Here’s a beautiful new PDF Saddle Road Press cover maven, photographer and writer Don Mitchell sent out to all of us in the Saddle Road Press Family.

Gratitude is also due Poet and Teaching Artist Ren Powell, for the generosity of her time and the delight I had discussing poetry’s trajectory in my life as a seeker and mother, This Choice, Pryputniewicz.

Though I’ve been teaching for many years now, (twenty-four and counting), I owe Jen Louden (author of 8 books including The Women’s Comfort Book and The Life Organizer: A Woman’s Guide to a Mindful Year) of TeachNow a shout out. I just took part in her free mini-course—and the handful of writing exercises she gave out there really helped me see my teaching in a new light. Ironically, I’m too busy teaching at the moment to actually take the 3 month course she’s offering this spring, but here’s a link in case you have been wishing and wanting to step into teaching, Sustainable Success on the Teacher’s Path. I found Louden to be positive, vibrant, and bursting with practical ways to dive in immediately and begin teaching.

Speaking of teaching, April 11, 2016, I’ll be starting my next Tarot Writing Class, Wheel of Archetypal Selves: The Many Faces of Change. I’d love the chance to work with you—or would love it if you would  pass along the link to other Tarot devotees!

 Related link:

Igniting the Heart Torus: Tarot Visioning with the Ace of Wands on Quest 2016 (heart torus is a phrase I learned from Jen Louden). 

For Love of Poetry: This Choice, podcast hosted by Ren Powell

Here's the tiny pencil sharpener typewriter my father gave me once upon a time with Emily Dickinson's 1263, "There is no Frigate like a Book," sitting in the carriage on my desk next to the framed tiny feather and butterfly wing I wrote about in one of my first posts for Feral Mom, Feral Writer, The Desk, back in 2007 when I was still nursing an infant and "November Butterfly" was just a poem I had written and miraculously placed in 2005 in The Dickens along with "God's in the Butter" (co-winner of the Eugene Ruggles Prize for Poetry). 

Just days shy of my due date for my third child, I had to be coaxed out that night by a warm and loving email from the editors urging me to attend the award ceremony (without of course tipping off that I'd won). We drove through a heavy downpour, Braxton Hicks contractions coming and going, my children falling asleep to steady sweep of the windshield wipers. My husband stayed with the kids and I went on in alone to read the poem to a room full of lovers of poetry, grateful for the interlude, grateful that my father and his wife met me inside.

Photo by Robyn Beattie

Ren Powell generously gave me the chance to read "God's in the Butter" again here in her podcast, This Choice, as well as the chance to answer her artful questions about poetry's grip on my psyche and the manner in which exposure to world religions on a childhood commune, my subsequent experience of motherhood, and my latest Tarot devotions shape my relationship to my body, mind, and the poems I can't seem to stop writing. 

(Also included in the podcast is a reading of Dickinson's poem.)

You can listen here to the full podcast: 

This Choice, Tania Pryputniewicz

And also check out the first interview in the series:

This Choice, Kelli Russell Agodon (Agodon is the founder of Two Sylvias Press, and co-creator of the Poet Tarot deck).

Photo by Robyn Beattie

Related Links:

Ren Powell: Poet and Teaching Artist

Wheel of Archetypal Selves: The Many Faces of Change, my next Tarot Writing class, begins April 11 and runs for 9 weeks. Major Arcana under study: Chariot, Wheel of Fortune, Devil, Hermit, Strength, Tower, Death and Fool Cards. No prior experience of the Tarot cards necessary.

To learn about my approach to Tarot Writing, visit Tarot Tuesdays at Wheel of Archetypal Selves on Facebook where I post a Tarot writing exercise every Tuesday or visit Tarot for Two where writer Mary Allen and I consider a card, one per month, and the role the card played in our month.

Photos by Robyn Beattie (with exception of typewriter photo).

March Publications and Tarot Writing Prompts

Robyn Beattie

“Walking the Laguna,” dedicated to Reginald Shepherd, is live in this month’s issue of TAB, A Journal of Poetry and Poetics thanks to Anna Leahy. The poem is up both as a PDF and sound recording. You won’t hear my Siberian Husky in the background of the final MP3, but she gave it her best shot (see Pet Bedlam, Three Takes to Record a Poem)! I love that TAB includes our written words and our actual voices. The issue is beautiful in entirety.

Robyn Beattie 

“When Elder Becomes Child,” is up at Marisa Gaudy’s website as part of her #365Strong Stories thread; I am grateful to the artists and writers I’m blessed to collaborate with thanks to Tracking Wonder's Quest 2016. Marisa is looking for submissions for her Strong Stories series; please do send her your work.

All through December, I used colored pencils while on Quest to sketch out and explore my Tarot Devotions and dreams for my Tarot Writing Business; I’m blessed to be in the middle of teaching my new Wheel of Archetypal Selves Courses: The Many Faces of Love and working on creating new courses around Tarot Deck creation. I'm happily booking  Tarot Consults with writing prompts and giving away a weekly Tarot Writing prompt at my Wheel of Archetypal Selves Tarot Tuesday page. 

Photo Robyn Beattie

I created Tarot Tuesdays with my prior and current Tarot students in mind and also invite artists, writers, and Tarot enthusiasts to check out the prompts. We’re moving sequentially through the deck, starting with the suit of Cups. If you are not a fan of Facebook, you can also find the prompts on my main site (links included below for Ace of Cups through Six of Cups).

Here are the links to far:

Prompt for Ace of Cups

Prompt for Two of Cups

Prompt for Three of Cups

Prompt for Four of Cups

Prompt for Five of Cups

Prompt for Six of Cups

Robyn Beattie

A second goal for this project is an ongoing collaboration with Robyn Beattie—she’s supplying a photo interpretation of each card, and I’m writing a Haiku. 

Last week's Haiku for the Five of Cups:

Grief is a blue cloak

Wicking tears from root-spilled cups

Widow, turn: Friends wait.

It’ll take us a year and a half to create our full deck of Tarot Writing prompts using Robyn’s images paired with Haiku and drawing on the prompts up on the website—but I’m very excited about this project, which seems a new beautiful extension of our poetry movies.

I’d love any feedback about how the prompts are working for you so we can create the best set of Tarot Writing prompt cards possible. Let me know in comments here, on Facebook, or on my main site, how the prompts are working for you.