Elizabeth is Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, 2022 to 2024

What does living bravely look like in a time of radical climate change, war, inflation – flood and famine, and violence that invades our churches, our schools, our local grocery and even our neighbor’s house? In fact it takes courage just to read the news. It takes courage to accept the contradictions in our lives – that I am safe while others are living through war. That I have food while others are starving. It takes courage to admit a mistake or to apologize and sometimes just to tell the truth. It takes courage to look into our own hearts and confront our fears, failures, losses, and loneliness.

Wherever we notice our fear or hesitancy, there's an opportunity to be brave. Courage should be celebrated for its most humble moments, which usually remain invisible, to its grand inspirations in someone like Volodomyr Zalensky or Cassidy Hutchison.

It takes courage to meet our own suffering, and courage is centered in the heart. To look at what is held there begins a process of change; and to share what is held there makes us vulnerable. When we are brave enough not only to look but to creatively share what we find, it becomes a form of spiritual practice, a practice that nurtures compassion.

Whether it’s a private moment from one’s own life or an homage to an inspirational other – when we share such poems and make time for conversation about them, we learn things about ourselves and each other that cannot help but deepen our understanding and respect and bring us all closer. By directing us to the question of how to live bravely in this time and place, the Being Brave Poetry Project evokes the compassion and the imagination we need to navigate the future as individuals and in community.

Aldo Leopold, father of the modern environmental writing, famously observed we take care of what we feel affection for, and Toni Morrison says that “Beauty makes the unbearable bearable.” My own poetry is always an effort to find the beauty that compels affection, even when the subject is otherwise unbearable. We want our hearts awakened, and poetry is about the heart. In the Being Brave Poetry Project, we hear the heart speak.

Being Brave podcast coming soon!

Poem in your Pocket Day…

As part of my Poet Laureate Being Brave Poetry Project, I invite you to make a tiny Being Brave poem for your pocket — make a lot of copies to stuff your pockets with!

National Poetry Month, Poem in your Pocket day is coming! April 27th is the day to give a stranger (or a friend) a poem from your pocket.

Here is my Being Brave pocket poem on receiving news today, March 28, 2023, of the passing of Bruce Johnson, creator of Poetry House https://formandenergy.com/poetry-house/ For the precious hours with Bruce, I count my blessings.

Losing a dear friend/we must be brave/remembering/laughter through tears.

________________________________

The following pocket poems are from my Being Brave poetry workshops:

You feel alone, disconnected, fearful, stuck -
perfect, you are standing
on the threshold of the mystery.
        Barry Vesser

I release darkness
To the quiet
Carried in his slipstream warmth
Breathless awaiting.
                 Ellie Insley

and even more pared down for a pocket poem is Ellie’s:

Quiet carried in his slipstream
warmth. Awaiting.

Let the walls soften & crumble,
Let light in, let love in –
an explosion of opera pink!
            Chachie Marlin & Elizabeth French

Courage in the red blanket.
Hope in immaginal cells.
            Ann Hancock

Carrying the empty bowl —
A torch to light the way
To the water of life.
                Deborah Hammond