Welcome to the playground

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I thought I’d take a minute to re-introduce myself, and this cozy corner of my world.

Hi. My name is Rebecca, and since I was eight years old, I’ve loved making pictures with words. I wrote my first ever story in second grade. I was thrilled by the realization that other people could see what I saw in my imagination, just by reading what I wrote down. Later, I realized that other people could make their own meaning out of something I made, and this delighted me even more. So I kept writing. Poetry became a special love of my heart.

Show Your Work

Several years ago, a friend and I read Show Your Work together. Shortly after that, Amanda Gorman read her poem, The Hill We Climb, at the presidential inauguration. Together, these two things led me to realize:

1. I love process. For me, the process is the point. It’s where the learning and the excitement lives.

2. Poetry is for the people. All the people, not just the academics or the lit nerds, or the English majors.

3. Every human being is creative. It is in our nature.

On the backs of these realizations, and inspired by a 100-Day online workshop (Hello to my Pro3 folks!), I created Our Daily Breath as a way to show what poems look like in draft form.

Every poem that goes out here is a work in progress. My hope is that by sharing the imperfect, the half-formed, the idea not-quite-ready, that you will be inspired to spend time with your own creative pursuits, without the burden of “getting it right” all the time.

Let’s Play Together

My intention is to send out 1-3 drafts a week, each one an invitation for you to take a deep breath, notice what’s around you, and give yourself permission to create, messily and imperfectly. The process is the point. Thank you for being here. I look forward to sharing with you.