2010s · All the Tiny Anchors · Anchors (Poetry with Music) · Poetry · Recordings

Sunken

Click here to listen to live recording with music!

You were always in need of sleep
always closing your eyes
lying against me
I built myself around you
a place of safe-rest

Let those deep gut-long sighs
out into our warm space
rubbed your dark-circled eyes
when I bathed you
in my wide comfort

I pressed for your surrender
my hands on your jaw
I know your eyelids
better than your eyes
You said it was me, not it

You said it serious
so I’d believe you
but sleep is not surrender
and job-tired was your cover

Your heart-tired sunk me
under, down, below
There isn’t a long enough bed
I’d never be enough rest

First published on Cadence Collective

2010s · All the Tiny Anchors · Anchors (Poetry with Music) · Poetry · Recordings

How to Lose 25 Pounds Without Dieting, Pills, or Exercise

I am incredibly excited to share this recording from, Anchors, a 12 track spoken word album that I will have available very soon. Lovingly produced in collaboration with Blacksheep Music (Karlee A. Tittle Cuff on violin, Bobby Cuff production).

(Click link to listen) How to Lose 25 Pounds Without Dieting, Pills, or Exercise

1. Open a Christmas card from a long lost love who found you on the internet, not on Facebook, especially if that long lost love broke your heart when you were young enough to idealize the heartache and especially if that card was also an apology.

2. Obsess about the million of possible reasons he sent that card the old fashioned way with stamp and pen after fourteen years of not-speaking-to-you-again, especially if there is no phone number or email included, just a return address.

3. Let him back into your well-worn heart without real answers, let him apologize again and again, but let him be unexplained and so much kinder and so much softer in the eyes.

4. Lose a lot of sleep buzzing constant with the weight you attach to his every syllable, every familiar gesture laced to his new grown-man charm, especially lose sleep waiting weeks in between the excuses you both invent to relive your lost connection.

5. Dive in very deep the moment he kisses you, do not look up, do not hold on to anything from the surface, keep pushing forward and down, let the pressure crush you, let him have every last ounce of oxygen.

6. Remain only in the present, minute to minute, live like you must love him for the lifetime you’ve lost, and never try to add up those years in between or account for his lack of details, live for the now reality of your skin and sweat and breath.

7. Surrender all your doubts and lay them unquestioning at his feet, do not see it coming, do not brace yourself, do not know you should have known, do not have any assurance but his hands through your hair, and do not ever regret it.

Text version published in the Heartbreak Anthology, edited by Karineh Mahdessian

The Heartbreak Anthology
The Heartbreak Anthology
Events · Feature Readings

April 5, 2014 Pondwater Presents: Nancy Lynée Woo and Sarah Thursday

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On Saturday, April 5th, we are taking over Pondwater! Nancy and I have been planning and plotting to present poetry in a beautiful and unique way.

Here is the information from the event page on Facebook.

Pondwater Presents: “We Are Not The Silence”: An Outdoor Showcase with Nancy Lynée Woo and Sarah Thursday

Synchronicity runs rampant between these two. Nancy and Sarah first crossed paths less than one year ago when they met at The Poetry Lab. They quickly realized they shared the same zeal and fervor for the world of poetry, and they seemed to have approached that a-ha moment of “Yes, let’s do this!” around the same time. So they began to write, read, workshop and attend countless poetry events together. Throughout these experiences, they also connected on growing up with struggle, living as empowered, passionate women, and manifesting dreams of bright poetry futures.

Sarah and Nancy are thrilled to be guests of the ever-charming Pondwater estate! They will be showcasing some of their best and least silent work – in conversation with one another. Plus, they’ll be accompanied by their musical friends – yes, music! They’re lovingly calling the evening, “We Are Not The Silence.” Bring your biggest hearts.

Nancy Lynée Woo has been writing poems since she was 8 years old but is only recently out of denial that she does in fact write poems. (She does in fact write poems!) In the last year, her work has been published or is forthcoming in a few journals, such as Artemis Journal, The Subterranean Quarterly, CHEAP POP, Cease, Cows and of course the wonderful Cadence Collective.

Before the poetry fire was fully lit, Nancy earned a degree in sociology from UC Santa Cruz, then spent the lost years after college flitting around as a Jane of a million trades. Now, she is working full-time as an editor while striving toward a first collection of poems. You can see her freelance website at spilltheink.net and follow her on Twitter @fancifulnance.

Sarah Thursday is a music obsessed, Long Beach poetry advocate, member of The Poetry Lab, and teacher of 4th and 5th graders. Poetry has been a part of her life since she tried to write songs on her grandmother’s guitar at age 7. Without musical talent, poetry became her song. After a ten year hiatus, she returned to her song and dove into the poetry community by creating and running CadenceCollective.net, a website to feature Long Beach area poets and poetry events. With the guidance of co-host G. Murray Thomas, she now co-hosts 2nd Mondays Poetry Party at Gatsby Books.

She is honored to have forthcoming or been published in The Long Beach Union (CSULB), The Atticus Review, East Jasmine Review, Lummox, Carnival, Ishaan Literary Review, and Mayo Review. Her full length collection, All the Tiny Anchors, is in the works. Follow her at SarahThursday.com.

16504 E. Masline St., Covina, CA 91722

Events · Feature Readings

Rapp Salo(o)n Reading on Friday, March 7th

Reading on Friday, March 7th in Santa Monica at the Rapp Salo(o)n with lots of cool people:

Also, featuring Language Chorus, MAN POEMS; Singer/Songwriter: AMILIA K. SPICER; Vocal Duo: THE CLOWNS WILL EAT ME with MASON SUMMIT and SPENCER SHAPEERO, 8PM Open Reading Sign-UP 8:30 ShowTime

1436, 2nd Street, Santa Monica, California 90401 Facebook Event Here.

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