Artisan
Artisan of life, she breaks out her loom and yarn. Memory weaver. -Katherine Gotthardt
Katherine’s Coffeehouse
Funny Thing
If I had to give myself a name, it would be laughter. That is what I do. I find things funny – or at least ironic. And then, I crack up. Everything can be turned on its head at least a couple of times, shaking the flakes in the snow globe. Go ahead. Make the
Azalea
I don’t know what you think of white, but tonight, I see azalea petals outdoing the dark, and I think, you know, I’d love to have a clothesline. Yes. I’d love to amble between shirts and sheets, get caught up in the touch of everything clean. I’d love to play Goddess, wrap myself in white,
Speaking of…
You’ve come to grips with it: no one’s in the audience. Every day, you hear yourself, reverberating in the mic, saying the same things in different ways, repeating your truths like mantras, your words like they came from the mountain. You must be doing something wrong, though. Nothing is happening. Nothing is changing. Nothing nods
Reminder #3
Open your notebook. Log the times you think you failed. Read it to the wind. -Katherine Gotthardt
Advice
This is my advice: slice the morning. Make wedges out of hours, minutes where you could be writing poetry. Carve the fleshy part of day, the time when words mean exactly what you think, exactly what you want, exact like a sharp, expensive tool you bring out for the big jobs. Poetry was made for
Tattoo
5 a.m. on a Sunday and I accidentally wake my husband. “Poetry piled up overnight,” I explain. He murmurs, “Death by poetry,” and rolls over. But I am here thinking how Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and great poets I don’t know enough about have carried me through the night— this most recent night, one that