Heather Stewart Poetry

Let’s start with new poems…..

I have some ideas for another collection, well, two other collections.

One is an actual lessons learned from my time in service, kind of like the poems I had been posting a while back. Some of those would be used as is and some have had a few revisions. So far, the beginning would look like this:

“There is a place where adventure awaits,
Where you may find a life among the fates,”
Whispered the goddess Kaos in her ear
“Closer,” she called to her, catching the fear.
“Worry not, my dear. Do not stress your mind.
Just, there’s a wandering I can help find.”

At first intrigued by such a simple thing
As a path the goddess was proposing
Our dear Violet smiled, not knowing there was more
Where events may be that she’d not planned for
A new beginning that could start right now
If only she knew to figure out how.
She could not betray the wish for wonder
When ahead there may yet be a wander
A departure from all expectation
A never considered situation

Time went on, which rarely waits for a choice
Let alone for a girl to find her voice
Days had passed, a melancholy set in
Worn was her resolve when came the hidden
Wolf one night, wool surrounding his dark frame
He saw her unsuspecting and took aim.

There’s more, but this is how it starts. Then the actual lessons are free verse, like this:

I learned that on one not so special day 
When not looking for anything 
Just avoiding entanglement, pursuit 
Someone can walk in and change 

Everything 

The other idea is something a bit more ….. feral. Maybe a little witchy, a little questioning, a little feminine rage. I’m sure it hasn’t gone unnoticed that there is some feminine rage going around right now. I’m not sure what happened, I was just promoting my book and women making strides in government and all of a sudden it just hit that glass ceiling. Everything did. And I don’t know about yours, but my social media has gone nuts.

Mostly, it’s gone nuts because there is apparently an idea among some people that books and recommendations for books and poetry aren’t inherently political. I don’t need to squash that idea, so many others are already all over it. Take one look at the Nobel for Literature to know for sure. Also realize how many of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates have memoirs out there. Books are political. They are one of the first places that people had turned for so long to publish and learn of other ideas. We literally still learn about the books that were published that led to the American Revolution. For those of us who don’t have a great education in books, the burning of books was even a key scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indie tracks down a diary in the middle of a book burning party and Hitler signs the diary. Book bans have always been problematic, even when the idea is just not having the book in a school.

Anywho, the point is that I may not be around spouting ideas about my party or affiliation, but we’re gonna talk about some things. Some books that talk about some things. I’ll continue recommending books on Instagram under @heatherspoetlife and TikTok @heatherstewartpoetry and we’ll get together some book lists here about feminism and intersectional feminism and racism and fantasy that showcases the oppressed overcoming.

But also, we’ll be writing. Do any other poets have work they’d like to share about how their feeling these days?

And not just how you are feeling about elections, but also book bans, and immigration, and just being a human in this world