how poemgrown happened

“Everything shines now.

What lovely weather is this?

   Your face facing mine.”

 

     

 

 

Heart-opening love finds us all in different ways, through different people, at different times.

 

And though it has found me many times in my life, the one that changed me forever was the birth of my son. When Leo came into the world, I was no longer able to look at anything, or anyone, the same way. I could see light. And I could see dark. Sharp was so much sharper. Soft so much softer. Gratitude suddenly flowed from me easily.

 

From that moment on, I wanted to make my life about this kind of love. Finding it. Feeling it. Honoring it. Sharing it. I just didn’t know how I was going to do that. Yet.

 

Fast forward a few years. I’m teaching poetry and doing some freelance copywriting when a friend asks if I could donate something to the silent auction for her son’s school. “Well… I could write a custom poem,” I said, and that’s what I offered. I put together a package of my book, CD, and a certificate for a commissioned poem for any occasion.

 

The woman who won it asked me to write a poem for her daughter’s seventh birthday. I met with her at a coffee shop, listened to her story, asked questions, and took notes. I had her send me a few photographs so I could have her daughter’s face to look at when I wrote.

 

The resulting poem was “Frost and Feathers.” I had never experienced such intentional writing. In the email the mom sent to me after reading her poem she wrote, “Line two and I’m crying already. This is the BEST gift ever!!” A lightbulb clicked. THIS is how I’m going to make my life about that kind of love. Finding it. Feeling it. Sharing it. Honoring it.

 

I woke up the next morning with the name poemgrown in my head. (I never wake up with that much clarity!) “Fast” forward 10 years, and here I am. Making my life about this kind of love and evolving a business that helps me do that. 

 

We are all hungry for a way to speak to the power of relationship. To be fed by our own life’s love stories. For ways to honor the sacred space of relationship. To celebrate, surprise, surround, remember, sweep someone off their feet. 

 

This is poetry’s favorite job. 

 

Poetry heals. Love wins.

 

It was Leo’s birth that began poemgrown, but it’s my clients who inspire me to continue to grow it. Who teach me one love story at a time what a beautiful world it is, and why. We are each other’s reason. We are each other’s home. 

 

There’s no better reason for a poem than that.