Poetry as Mirror, as Reflector of Light with Barbara Jane Reyes | Vinyasa in Verse Podcast Episode 36

People tend to come to poetry when they're at their lowest points, but it’s possible for poetry to become more than that. // Poetry is always a perfect place to notice the highs and lows more acutely rather than just moving through grief, loss, and deprivation unconsciously. // Art happens in our lives as a way of being in ourselves. Everyone's feeling that they're in darkness and struggling so they end up returning to poetry to look for the light. // Let go and trust. You have to acknowledge that there is something supernatural or something unseen that is more powerful than us. // Our right to pass through this place, this planet has everything to do with how properly we are regarding and treating these spaces well. // The importance of awareness of being in a relationship with nature, with the Land and being in a relationship with the things that are unseen that instead of dominating one over the other, it’s about being in collaboration with them.
In considering Barbara Jane’s new poetry collection, how do we frame our experiences as active resistance? How can poetry mirror what is happening so that we can find another way to witness it? // Consider the roles of our elders and our ancestors and our relationships with them when thinking about how we are being in the world. // We also talk a bit about superstitions, ghosts, and our ancestral inheritance. // Today's poems: “Unanimous” by Hafiz , "Acquainted with lightning" by Marjorie Evasco