Emerging Form

“You remind me of my humanness by talking about yours,” says this week’s Emerging Form guest Danusha Laméris. We speak with the award-winning poet about how the small stories--what she calls “the understory”--mean as much, perhaps more, as the big headlines, and the creative process around finding and sharing these stories. We talk about the importance of leaning into the complexity and not needing “to be a motivational speaker.” Danusha Laméris’ first book, The Moons of August (Autumn House, 2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize. Some of her poems have been published in The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, TheAmerican Poetry Review, The GettysburgReview, Ploughshares, and Tin House. She’s the author of Bonfire Opera, (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series, 2020), and the recipient of the 2020 Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. Danusha teaches poetry independently, and was the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California. Danusha LamérisThe Hive Poetry Collective Podcast“Small Kindnesses” by Danusha Laméris“June 20th” by Lucille Clifton“Bonfire Opera” by Danusha Laméris_____________________________Writing Haikus for Rosemerry—Christie AschwandenMy dear poet friendDoes not recognize that IWrote her a haiku This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Photo: A Holiday Mathis horoscope. [This thing you’re trying to accomplish cannot be accomplished as a linear pursuit. It’s a holistic process. So when you' feel yourself drawn “off track,” maybe you’re actually just working things from a different angle.]**Note: Apologies! We are re-sending this episode, as there was a technical problem in the first audio file. If you haven’t listened yet, this is the better version. In this bonus episode, we continue our conversation with writer Holiday Mathis, who writes a syndicated daily horoscope column and also happens to be a multi-platinum songwriter whose songs have been recorded by Miley Cyrus, Emma Roberts and many others. We talk about the difference between writing horoscopes and lyrics, more about attending to and chasing the muses, and about the essential quality of openness. Holiday MathisHoliday’s daily, syndicated horoscopesChristie’s blog, I know that astrology is b******t, but I can’t stop reading my hororscopeThe Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan KunderaRosemerry’s poem about her birthday horoscope last year This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Photo: A Holiday Mathis horoscope. [This thing you’re trying to accomplish cannot be accomplished as a linear pursuit. It’s a holistic process. So when you' feel yourself drawn “off track,” maybe you’re actually just working things from a different angle.]In this bonus episode, we continue our conversation with horoscope writer Holiday Mathis, who also happens to be a multi-platinum songwriter whose songs have been recorded by Miley Cyrus, Emma Roberts and many others. We talk about the difference between writing horoscopes and lyrics, more about attending to and chasing the muses, and about the essential quality of openness. Holiday MathisHoliday’s daily, syndicated horoscopesChristie’s blog, I know that astrology is b******t, but I can’t stop reading my hororscopeThe Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan KunderaRosemerry’s poem about her birthday horoscope last year This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How do you “reduce the drag” and make yourself the most available to daily output in your creative practice? To help with ideas, we turn to Holiday Mathis, who has written over eight million words in her daily, syndicated horoscopes. Talk about learning how to negotiate the daily grind! In this episode, we talk about how improvisation rules help in daily discipline, about Holiday’s muses and how she serves them and great advice from a soap opera actor. We talk ambition, how she got her start, and the role of the reader vs. the process of the writer. It’s a light-hearted, metaphor-rich, treasure trove of advice for creatives of all kinds. Holiday Mathis writes the syndicated daily horoscope column for hundreds of newspaper publications internationally including The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and in her hometown, The Tennessean. She is working on the Guinness Book World Record for the most consecutively published words by a single author in newspapers, having currently been published every day since 2005. Mathis is also a multi-platinum songwriter whose songs have been recorded by Miley Cyrus, Emma Roberts and many others. She lives in Franklin, Tennessee with her husband, daughter and two Shih Tzus. Holiday MathisToday’s horoscopes by HolidaySome of Mathis’s songsChristie’s blog post about Mathis: I Know Astrology is B******t, But I Can’t Stop Reading My HoroscopeRosemerry’s poem about her birthday horoscope last yearKoko the gorilla muse This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“Marvelous things happen when you follow your heart’s truth … open doorways you can’t imagine.” So says our special guest Kayleen Asbo in this special bonus episode with the amazing Kayleen Asbo, cultural historian, composer, musician, writer and teacher. We talk about her “pillars of the day,” and her “bookends,” plus habits she has for cultivating beauty and creating anchors in an itinerant life, plus things she wishes she’d known before that she trusts now--especially about reckless generosity. Kayleen AsboChristie’s upcoming workshop, Level Up: business planning for freelancers This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“Find what you long for and be brave and vulnerable enough to offer it to the world.” So says Kayleen Asbo, our featured guest on this episode of Emerging Form in which we speak about how to foster and shape creative community. Asbo is a cultural historian, composer, musician, writer and teacher who weaves myth, music, psychology, history and art with experiential learning. We talk about passion, about ways to help a group find juice, about how a group leader can encourage trust and intimacy, as Asbo says, by leading “with your own breaking open heart.” At their best, creative communities refresh, encourage, support and inspire us--and offer us discipline. This episode is full of thoughts and tips on everything from creating commitment to how to create intimacy online. Kayleen Asbo holds master's degrees in music (piano performance), mythology and psychology. She has been a faculty member at the Pacifica Graduate Institute and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Osher Life Long Learning Institutes at UC Berkeley, Sonoma State University and Dominican University. She teaches on a wide array of topics, ranging from Jungian Depth Psychology to Dante to the History of Classical Music. As theCreative Director and Resident Mythologist for Mythica, Asbo used to spend three months a year leading workshops and retreats in sacred sites in Europe and has turned her treasury of pictures and stories from these pilgrimages into online "Virtual Pilgrimages."Kayleen AsboVirtual PilgrimagesTo learn more about Christie’s freelancing workshops, visit https://christieaschwanden.com/workshops/ or email Christie@nasw.org**The Hero of the Imogene Pass Race --Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerWhen I think of encouragement,I think of Jack Pera,who stood every yearat the top of Imogene Pass—in snow, in sun, in sleet, in fog.On race day, a thousand plus runnerswould reach the top,weary, having climbedover five thousand feet in ten miles,and Jack, he would hold out his handand pull each of us up the last foot,launching us toward the long downhill finish.I remember how surprised I wasthe first time, and grateful,grateful to feel him reaching for me,grateful to feel his powerful gripyanking me up through the scree.“Good job,” he’d say to each one of us,cheering us though we were sweatyand drooling and panting and spent.After that first race, I knew to look for himas I climbed the last pitch,trying to make out his format the top of the ridge.And there was. Every time.“Good job,” he’d sayas he made that last steep stepfeel like flight.There are people who do this,who hold out their hand,year after year,to help those who need it.There are people who carry uswhen we feel broken,if only for a moment.When I heard today Jack had died,I couldn’t help but imaginean angel waiting there above himas he took his last breath,an angel with a firm grip and a big smileholding out a hand, pulling him through that last effort,telling him, “Good Job, Jack. Good job.”And may he have felt in that momentthe blessing of that encouragement,totally ready to be launched into whatever came next.Good job, Jack Pera. Good job. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

In this bonus episode of Emerging Form, our guest Amy Irvine surprises us right away when we ask to describe her writing practice. “Erotic,” she says. Find out what that means, and how you, too, might want to find your way toward that answer. We also talk about terrible writing advice from a therapist, Amy’s workspace, and the advice she would give her younger self. Mary Carr on Sacred CarnalityAmy IrvineAir Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & PlaceDesert Cabal This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Sometimes, a project just comes together in the most organic, meant-to-be way, and nothing can stop it. What’s that like? We explore that experience in this episode with our guest, Amy Irvine, who co-wrote Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Place with our previous guest, Pam Houston. We’ll talk about how the form emerged--what began as an epistolary exercise became a fully fledged book. We’ll talk about how creative endeavors can create friendships. We also talk about her previous book, Desert Cabal, about backlash against women writers and more. Amy Irvine won the Orion Book Award and Colorado Book Award for her memoir, Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land Her next book, Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, is a feminist response to Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, and one of Orion’s “25 Most-Read Stories of the Decade.” It was also added to Outside Magazine’s Adventure Canon and named by Backpacker as one of its New Wilderness Classics. During the pandemic, Irvine co-authored Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Placewith Pam Houston; the book is forthcoming in October 2020, as is Amy’s latest essay for Orion: “Close to the Bone.” Irvine teaches in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. In addition to frequently teaching for Orion Magazine, she has taught at Western Colorado University, the Free Flow Institute, Whitman College’s Semester in the West, the University of Utah’s Environmental Humanities Program at Rio Mesa, and Fishtrap’s Outpost. Irvine lives and writes off-grid on a remote mesa in southwest Colorado, just spitting distance from her Utah homeland.Amy IrvineAir Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & PlaceDesert CabalDesert SolitairePam Houston This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

In this bonus episode, Rosemerry reads a poem from our episode 25 guest, Alison Luterman, and then presents a song from The Chain, one of the musicals that Alison discussed on the podcast. Links:The ChainIn the Time of Great FiresAlison Luterman This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How can creative practice become a political act? In this episode of Emerging Form, we speak with poet, playwright, memoirist and lyricist Alison Luterman. We talk in depth about her musical The Shyest Witch--about how, when you work in so many genres, a form might suggest itself; how the project evolved from being about the 2016 election into broader feminist themes, how she worked with input from collaborators and actors; and how she, too, is evolving as an artist, learning a new skill even as she is at the top of her game in other creative realms. We also talk about artworks that inspired her, including Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues and how she deals with her political work becoming a lightning rod for contentious responses--“If I’m not going to speak up now, when am I going to?”Alison Luterman's four books of poetry are The Largest Possible Life; See How We Almost Fly; Desire Zoo, and In the Time of Great Fires. Her poems and stories have appeared in The Sun, Rattle, Salon, Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, The Atlanta Review, Tattoo Highway, and elsewhere. She has written an e-book of personal essays, Feral City, half a dozen plays, a song cycle We Are Not Afraid of the Dark, as well as two musicals, The Chain and The Shyest Witch. Alison performs with the Oakland-based improvisation troupe Wing It! and has given writing workshops all over the country, including at Omega and Esalen Institutes. She teaches memoir at The Writing Salon in Berkeley, and is available for private coaching in writing or creativity, both in-person or on-line. Show notes:Marie Howe on On Being/Write ten thingsWriting Naturally by David PetersenAlison LutermanAlison’s poem, “Some Girls” in the New York Times MagazineA sneak peak of the music video from Alison’s musical-in-progress The Shyest Witch. (Alison notes: The witch, Rebekah Vega, had to be their own cameraperson and used a tripod while filming.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe