"Hope is a group project"

So please join in the poll at the end!

This idea comes from Salena Godden on Woman’s Hour this week and it comes in the nick of time because I was going to title this email ‘I am pooped’, but thanks to Salena I have a much brighter title.

Poetry, I think, is all about stages:

Stage 1: The noticing. In this case ‘I am pooped’

Stage 2: Examining the pooped-ness, its characteristics, its qualities, how it is rooted in existence.

Stage 3: Understanding the pooped-ness; what does it teach us, how does it help us?

Stage 4: Sharing the noticing and the examining and the understanding through words so that someone else can relate and learn and develop from that examining and understanding.

In short:

Poets are pragmatic optimists, as Salena shares in her conversation.

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So why am I poetically pooped? Well, since I last wrote I have published another five podcast episodes on subjects ranging from betrayal to deafness to sustainable styling to reducing trauma in prisons.

I clearly missed the brief on ‘know your niche’…

Or did I?

Because my niche is in the noticing and the examining and the understanding and the sharing through words and poetry so that together we may have hope; hope in understanding others more, ourselves more and how to healthily and happily be in the world in all our humanity.

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I also wrote a book called ‘I love you’. This writing job required me to create my 50 top dating tips along with sayings and quotes. It was fun to work on, even though it wasn’t within my normal remit.

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My weekly ‘Permission to feel’ paid subscribers received newsletters which included a mental, physical, spiritual and emotional approach on how to deal with dread; how to listen to and visualise your fear to know yourself better; techniques to help you bring yourself out of the comparison trap and how we can use our admiration of others to help ourselves. PLUS a shelfie with some book recommendations.

With OF COURSE a few of my poems chucked in for good measure.

Thank you to those of you who are paid subscribers - I love writing for you, and if you are having a FOMO attack and want to join the gang for just £6 per month then clickety click here on this button…

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I also trained as a speaker for NACOA - National Association for Children of Alcoholics and I hope to start going to schools and organisations who want to hear more about the impact that a parent’s addiction can have on their children, and what can be done about it.

On similar lines, I have also agreed to work with the All Parliamentary Party Group for 12 step recovery, working with Visible Recovery to help them facilitate their recovery fairs.

I had one book proposal turned down (for my Yummy Mummy Says collection), the TED Talk that I was shortlisted for was cancelled and I had several tumble weed moments when I sent out proposals for writing workshops. Aaah, such is life.

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More local to home, it looks like we’ll be setting up a monthly poetry performance night. We are hoping to organise this for 9th May and it is currently called ‘A right royal rhyming rigmarole’. It will be a terribly high brow affair, so if you live in Surrey UK, look out for more information in the May newsletter and bring a friend…or a thesaurus (which you may view as a friend, of course, and that works too).

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What else? Oooh, so I am going to experiment with audio! The amount of time taken up with editing the podcasts is too much (read: all consuming). So in the spirit of ‘Hope is a group project’ I am joining Surrey Hills Radio to start my own show on there. Now this is where I need your help with your opinions.

It will either:

1. Be an extension of The Therapeutic Poet podcast, similar format with some music.

2. Follow the format of ‘Permission to feel’ where I take a feeling each show and chat, have songs and poems and insights based on that emotional theme.

3. Be a different slant with ‘Women’s Wise Words’ where I invite a woman on to offer their wise words to the world. The average age that women begins to feel invisible is apparently 47 (not sure about this, not sure some women ever feel truly visible) and I’d like to do what I can to change that! A lot of women have a breadth and depth of wisdom and experience that they may struggle to share, so I want to offer a platform for that.

So what do you reckon? I hope you can group together and give me your view. Oh, did that neatly tie me back to the title of this email? Oh yes, it did, good. My work is done. Now over to you…

Finally, if you enjoy these newsletters then I’d be so grateful if you could spread the word.

Please will you take a moment now to recommend it to someone who might enjoy it?

Or you could gift a subscription in time for Easter which is, quite frankly, more eco-friendly and less calorific.

Happy holidays!

That’s it for now,

‘Til next time!

Jacky x

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