with Catherine Graham and Jessica Outram
This question leads us to talk about many things including P.K. Page, what it’s like to be a highly sensitive child, whether we’d like the gift of invisibility or mind control, the power of dreams, when dreams turn to visions and when visions turn to poems. Catherine shares her poem “The Bullied” and Jessica shares her poem “How Old Is Your Spirit.”
What happens when we move from word to image? Catherine talks about her experience leading a creative problem-solving workshop and how the images that appear know more than we do. What happens when we let go of control? Jessica talks about what her books have to say to her (yes, they do know where they want to be in her new home!). She also shares her experience braiding sweetgrass and the poem it inspired. We end our chat with Catherine’s poem on metamorphosis: “Imago.”
We talk about Rick Rubin’s book The Creative Act: A Way of Being and what it awakens in us as creators. What does it mean to lead a creative life? How do we get into a creative space? Catherine shares what recently happened on a walk to circle her back to her poem “Wind Tricks.” Jessica shares some insights about her intuitive painting journey as well as her poem “Lost Lesson.” And yes, the forest has eyes.
As we kick off season five, we explore full circle moments and how with aging we carry more questions than answers. Catherine shares the story behind her poem “The Rain Barrel” and Jessica talks about writing her first picture book Bernice and the Ancestors. Plus “The Red Poppy” by Louise Glück, the link between silent and listen, and how listening leads to seeing and being seen.
We discuss Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, a book we read in a workshop together twenty years ago when our friendship began. We read an excerpt from the first letter that explores life lessons and the interaction between the inner and outer self. This leads us to chat about what it means to be a writer vs author, the role of attention, and connecting to the core of the inner self. Plus the importance of the everyday as a source for writing and the letting go of outcome.
Our conversation circles and spirals as we revisit Jessica’s book The Writing Spiral: Learning as a Writer. Rumi, T. S. Eliot, solitude and self-awareness all feed our talk about the labyrinth as a metaphor for our life path and how to arrive at the centre of the self. Plus Emily Carr and the “unity of movement.”
We explore looking back to look ahead. Catherine talks about her just published book, Put Flowers Around Us and Pretend We’re Dead: New and Selected Poems, the micro journey and the macro, the role of attentiveness and what it’s like putting a New and Selected book together. We also share quotes by Mary Oliver, Albert Einstein and a mourning dove visits us too.
We talk about the heartbeat of the ground (a line from Catherine’s poem “A Leash of Deer”), the pulse of everything, plus the current that connects us. Jessica shares her poem “A River Flows” and its origin story. We discover how a poem can hold a poem beneath it. Catherine reads her poem “Chthonic” and takes us to the underground. We see how imagery can lure us to slip beneath.
Catherine shares her poem “A Leash of Deer” and the story behind it. (Yes, it started with a coaster purchased in Edinburgh.) We talk about how poems and encounters with animals open us up and bring us closer at the same time, how they expand and contract. Jessica reads an excerpt from her latest book Bernice and the Georgian Bay Gold that includes an encounter with a crow. When we lean into the energies around us, we feel the connections. When we pay attention, the gifts come.
We explore how art shapes our lives and our lives shape art. We talk about what shakes and shimmers, negative capability, and chance encounters with animals. Catherine reads an excerpt from her novel Quarry. We move from the ‘ice-cream realm’ to the weight of grief. We realize if we can let go of control and let the body guide us—that’s when the magic appears.
The Hummingbird Podcast 