Just over a week ago, I had the pleasure of reading three of my poems at Jeremy Dixon’s online book launch. The book is called The Beat The Pulse The Wave (Arachne Press) and speaks so much of music, family and sea. I loved hearing some of Jeremy’s poems from the book as well as his process of bringing it all together, from the design of the cover through to the arrangement of poems and connection to family and love. At the book launch, one of the poems I read is in an upcoming book called Up//Roar Poems Of Queer Resistance (Arachne Press) and I’m so excited to have my poem birthed into the world in this collection.

Over recent years, I’ve tried to engage more with poetry seeing it as such a resource for me. I’ve been to various workshops about poetry and writing and more recently, since early 2025, I have had the joy of being part of a queer writing group and getting to hang out with other people who love writing and poetry. I find it energising and something that nourishes my soul deeply - hearing others’ creative expressions and the vulnerability that comes from that as well as hearing people’s reactions to my writing is amazing. There is something about poetry that feels so freeing, both in the writing of it and expressing myself in that way, as well as reading and speaking poetry.

It has been through going to trainings where poetry has been read that I have come to know Mary Oliver’s work more deeply. Poems like ‘Wild Geese’ speak to me so much about community and connection. I think what makes this poem so much more meaningful is the connection I have to geese in one of the parks I often visit (Sefton Park) and the flock of geese that live on the lake there. Reading others’ poetry outloud, is something that has been part of what I love about being a trainer. I like to find poems that have links to the theme of the training I offer. Speaking these poems feels a way to support people to slow down and take in something creative. I am particularly interested in reading and speaking poetry that belongs to voices that are perhaps not often heard. It might be individuals who do not share their writing widely or it might be from an author that is perhaps less well known and maybe comes from a place of marginalised bodily experience, for example, global majority authors.

I have been writing poetry since I was in school. Much of my earlier work has been love poems to individuals who inspire in me some way of writing and expressing that seems to emerge from the relationship. As well as writing poetry sporadically over the years, in recent times, I have become more steady in my poetry practice. Having some kind of structure to aim towards writing each month as well as trying out different processes for writing and forms of poetry has been a great way to grow confidence in my poems and build on the writing I have done. I try to listen to a poem a day and I really love the work of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer who both writes a poem every day and also reads one out on the Ritual app. I love the idea of writing or hearing a poem a day - something about the consistency of that process feels good to me.

Coming up next month, I’m offering a workshop at our Hakomi International Congress. This is a gathering of Hakomi students, practitioners, teachers and trainers from across the world, coming together to share practices and be together. The workshop is called Poetry and Presence and is based on a workshop that Jeremy Finch (voice specialist) and I offered last year at our annual Hakomi residential. What I love about this offering is that it’s about embodied encounter with our own writing and voice. Part of what got me interested in this is noticing how, when I read someone else’s poetry, I can feel the way my breath slows down, my voice relaxes and I love the experience. In contrast, when I started writing more of my own poetry, speaking this outloud was really challenging, it was definitely not relaxing!! There is something about how much more vulnerable I feel in reading my own poetry that makes relaxing more of a challenge. I’m so thankful for experiences like Jeremy’s book launch that are helping me build this muscle!

In our Poetry and Presence workshop, we’ll be using Hakomi as a way to connect to ourselves at the start and then throughout the workshop to notice our own process with some writing we’ve chosen to share. This will flow through from noticing what it’s like to be with our own writing as an individual to sharing with one other through and sharing with the wider group. Jeremy will offer his embodied vocal methodology to support people to connect with their voice at the start and throughout. Hakomi is a practice that supports our connection with our whole selves, body, mind, emotions, spirit or soul, energy and parts and the invitation through this workshop will be to notice as much as we can of our experience in these different channels. Fred Rogers said, “we speak with more than our mouths” and throughout the workshop we’ll be building in practices that help to connect us to both our voice and the rest of our presence that supports our voice.

I think of poetry as something like water; it has different states, there can be a kind of flow to it, both in creating it and in speaking it. It can be solid at times and also can be ethereal and ungraspable. It can carry us somewhere, it can lift us up. It can be powerful and all consuming.

Thanks so much for reading and I hope to share some poetry with you soon!

You can follow Jeremy Dixon on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/hazardpressuk/

You can see the his book plus the pre-order for Up//Roar on the Arachne Press website here: https://arachnepress.com/Up-Roar-p815446085

If you want to work with Jeremy Finch you can find him here: https://teachingusp.com/#contact