Weeknotes #25: The Poetry Post
You are reading ‘Like person, like coach’: explorations at the intersection of personal narrative and coaching practice:
‘Thanks to your love, a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.’
- Pablo Neurda, Love Sonnets: XVII
I can re-read these lines hundreds of times and I still stir every time. I’ve recently picked back up my old time poetry-writing practice. Mostly I’ve picked up loads of books with loads of poems and reading them deeply so that in reading others I find my own voice.
I was inspired to go back to writing poetry thanks to DreamRehab, an event organised by Reuben Christian which helps people rehabilitate their dreams. I didn’t know it at the time, but Reuben reignitied my dream of writing a book. And since September I’ve taken bold steps towards it: I’ve applied for a 1 month writing residency, I designed the cover of the book, I’ve been writing daily, I’ve gone back to performing at open mics in London.
I’ve watched too many movies where someone says: ‘dreams are for the young’, ‘life gets serious’, ‘life beats dreams out of you’. I think somewhere along the line I became that person, at least in relation to this dream. And it’s good to get out of my funk and reconnect with the fact that I can write this book if I really want to.
The working title of the book is ‘There is Nothing Wrong With Your Body’. It’s the kind of book you can read on the tube and send out a message to everyone who notices it. It will be a poetry book that documents my social, medical and legal gender transition. Most likely a series of poetry pamphlets across multiple years as my body/self changes.
It’s an interesting position to be in as a coach, reigniting a dream and noticing the effort, commitment and support it requires. I’ve been lucky to have the opportunity to work with Kruti Shah and in a couple of coaching sessions make incredible progress. In pursuing this dream I feel reconnected with being on the other side of coaching: being both the dreamer and the doer, remembering both how hard it is and how sweet the reward.
This week I’ve found many poems that I can’t stop re-reading. I’d like to share one of them with you - I hope it awakens something in you, too:
The Burning
Alex Kramskaya
It turned
Ever widening
The dark encroaching closely over
Tired, tired limbs.
How long does time last
Till cheap thrills crunch like subtle bones underneath their hiking shoes.
The cold takes over the withered frame
Of lungs still heaving tirelessly.
Only a rush will satiate me now
Madness in my morning coffee -
It wasn’t for nothing that I
Fell away so effortlessly:
I rose in tatters and in flames -
This week I’m thinking about:
📝 Black Lives Matter but to Whom? by Báyò Akómoláfé
🤯 Seeing the Sound of a Black Hole by John White
💔 This love poem by Pablo Neruda!
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If you enjoy reading Like Person, Like Coach, please recommend it to others who might find useful, too. If you have feedback and suggestions on how I can deepen my learning please write me on iacobrbacian@gmail.com.