pi & anne

Today my proofcopy arrived. And of course there is something I need to adjust, but do you see this?! The cover! The size! It is a bit more on the narrow side, and you can easily put it into a pocket of your jacket or your bag. Do you see the cover?! I made this. Everything. From scratch. These are feathers falling down, and yes, could be also leaves. Printed, using ink, with a stamp made out of a potato.

How did these tanka come to me? They fell out of nowhere.

Why did they come to me? Because I needed them to help me understand what I felt.

For whom are they? For anybody who knows life can be hard and can leave you breathless and at loss. No path is the same, each path has its own curves and challenges, but sometimes it feels like losing oneself on the way, right? These tanka just want to be a companion on your way. Just that. You are not alone.

How did I write them? Like I write any of my prose and poetry. I always start with a feeling, no matter what I write. And I ask myself, “How does this feeling want to exist? What does it ask for? What has happened to wake up this feeling?” Then I sit down and type on my phone. Like I’m doing it right now. And then I sit with it, until the words on the screen explain my own emotion to me. Sometimes I use cutouts to get this process started. Sometimes I edit and show the tanka to my friends. Sometimes I share a long list of versions! I am glad my friends, even my non-writer friends, bear with my joy to share things and poetry.

So… now I’ll be reading my own little chapbook again, and see if I have to adjust it. Because this is part of the process of me being human: I have my permission to fuck things up. To be imperfect. And above all, I’m still and always good enough.