Take Me to the Thin Places

My new poetry collection is here (and so is the summer solstice)!

Taking my newly born book on a summer solstice photo shoot

Hello, Friends! I hope you were able to spend some of today’s summer solstice enjoying a bit of sun and celebrating the arrival of summer, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Today in Boston was hot (as in a heat index of 101 degrees Fahrenheit) and I was guiding at Orchard House all day, but I still manage to slip outside a few times to visit the honeysuckle in the garden and spend a few quiet minutes on a lovely shady path behind the house, enjoying the birdsong and feverfew as my companions.

I adore the summer solstice, and this year has been an extra special day because my fourth poetry collection, Take Me to the Thin Places, has been born into the world, and is now available for order here. Take Me to the Thin Places includes fifteen brand new poems, as well as many of the poems I’ve shared here on Substack over the last year, all bound in one place (as some subscribers have requested). I hope you love them.

I wanted to explore what it feels like to walk among the thin places, those physical and emotional spaces can gift us with profound pain and pleasure, and where we can touch the sacred and commune more deeply with our true selves. I have craved writing poetry that capture the spaces where borders blur, and past and future blend with the present moment to reveal a space in which all is holy.

My poetry almost never makes me feel like I’m receiving answers, but that I’m getting to ask and explore deeper questions.

How do we navigate our lives when the heart breaks?

How can our most profound desires and losses both connect and part us with others, both alive and dead?

What does it mean to own our stories, be brave enough to sit with pain, and remain open to hope, especially when nothing is promised?

Amidst grief, how do we make room for the ecstasy of what it is to be alive and breathing in this very moment?

There are few feelings that come close to releasing new poems into the world, and receiving notes and messages about which ones are resonating with you - so keep them coming! I am grateful beyond what words can describe for each and every one of you and for your continued enthusiasm, support, and love for my writing. I absolutely adore writing poetry for you, and can’t wait to hear what you are connecting with in this new collection.

In the spirit of celebrating the release of the book and the arrival of the summer solstice, I am sharing a video of me, below, in the backyard of Orchard House this afternoon, reading you one of the brand new, never been shared before poems from the new collection: Ghastly Tales and Hearts That Won’t Burn. My camerawork is slightly shakier than I had hoped it would be, but I couldn’t resist recording on a quick break from work today, amidst the trees and wind and birdsong.

But first, a bit of background on the origin story of this poem. Ghastly Tales and Hearts That Won’t Burn is a poem inspired by Mary Shelley and the true story of how she conceived the idea for Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus during a summer spent indoors with a group of fellow writers in Switzerland in 1816. Due to a volcanic eruption in Indonesia the previous year, 1816 is known as the year without a summer. Instead of sun and warm breezes, parts of Europe and North America experienced snow and hail. Crops failed and it’s estimated that at least 100,000 people around the world died.