What do I want Poetry Shelf to be?

This question resonated at dawn because, even when I step back from news feeds, toxic political voices, both global and local, hierarchical and hegemonic, make their way in to fuel thoughts and images of a world on the brink of catastrophe.

Do I want Poetry Shelf to be a clearing in the disheartening thicket that comforts, inspires, nourishes, celebrates, offers myriad connections across myriad poetry communities in Aotearoa?

Do I want Poetry Shelf to be a patchwork of light and dark, a composition which reflects how my life is at the moment, and how it is for so many people? My mornings are light, my afternoons dark. Today my morning hits a dark patch and everything tilts.

Do I want the blog to offer respite, to provide channels for joy, contemplation, restorative breathing, or do I want to offer space to challenge the selfish choices of leaders and individuals that foreshadow dangerous consequences . . . or both?

This morning, I just don’t know. I have started reading Talia Marshall’s glorious memoir, Whaea Blue, and it is doing the trick. It is splintering the dark. She writes with such care and craft, such wisdom and humanity, I am reminded why books matter, why books of all genres matter.

Honestly, I don’t know how my spiky recovery road is proceeding, whether I will ever escape my daily challenges, but I do know that joy is the key. I do know that holding tight to the things that deliver joy each day, no matter how small, are essential aides: cooking, gardening, reading, writing, blogging, breathing in bush song and sea air. Touching base with friends. And I do know that so many people are navigating incredibly tough times. Across all ages, across the world.

So yes, my blog is a tapestry of dark and light. I want to provide space for challenge and wound and despair, but more than anything, I want to offer Poetry Shelf as balm, a wee retreat, a place to connect and find aroha, to share the joy we harness and harvest when we read and write.