Thank you Nelly for these poems! <3 I love them all, especially the Yrsa Daley-Ward one. Reminds me of a couple of my girlfriends! "Wearing nothing but lipstick the color of desire". So great!
This weeks collection reminded me of a poem(prose poem?) I wrote on the similar topic, goes like this:
I could slide down this stone staircase, like her favorite cloth. Face, dress, body and all. Hair would follow, I would flow down the stone, rounded and warm from the summer day. I could take a stroll down my own clavicles, on my tiptoes like a dancer, deliver this body wrapped in a dress like a gift.
I could. But I am not going to.
Instead I sit on the staircase, supple and soft. Sipping on wine and glances of people wondering. My left shoe already lost to the abyss, of just one step below. Palm fallen, giddy from the perfume. I think of my mother, and how she could only ever yearn for words spoken by dead poets.
That last stanza is powerful. And a 'left shoe lost to the abyss, of just one step below,' is genius. The best thing I've read this week. The comments section is where it's all at.
Oh my goodness yes Ellen. I look back now and wonder whether I always had times in the month like this but never recognised them as such. Did I really have so little connection with my body growing up? Love this. Thanks for making me ponder this morning x
It’s so interesting isn’t it, I notice so many things now - maybe it all does get more intense with age, or perhaps more likely as I don’t take hormonal contraceptives anymore?! I don’t know!
The pill removes our 'inner seasons' and we don't ovulate which means we don't get the. summer high so you'll definitely be experiencing the delicious, full spectrum of it all now! YES! xx
Yess I can feel the energy of your words 🔥 And to end with the repetition is so evocative of the breath of excitement and what you yourself call the carnal human self proclamation - I am alive!!
It is just jam packed with realness. Demanded a second read. And the last line 👌You’ve inspired me to try a little something for myself too. Thank you x
Reading this, I've definitely got it easy, since my babies I don't get cramps any more. I love how your poem circles in on itself going from horny to barren following a woman's monthly/life cycle. Aren't we amazing! (Taps self on back.)
Margaret- I can so feel the day 'oneness' of this poem in all of my being! I loved the sleep in direct comparison to the constant thoughts of making love only a couple. of weeks ago. The magnitude of our differing wants- it's extraordinary...WE are extraordinary! x
Oh, I know this feeling. And the "rattling red beans against white walls" and the expectation of the grief of not having this particular pain anymore is so evocative for me.
Thank you, A. I’m glad it made emotional sense to you. It’s been really freeing to write poems about my cycle and all the strangeness that comes with it. I spent so many years feeling ashamed, never talking to anyone about it.
Thanks to you and Steph for such brilliant inspiration this week. My response got unexpectedly raw and it is a testament to this group that I feel safe enough to share it here. It is a lengthier poem than I usually post - and I probably will edit it again in the future, but here is my piece:
.
.
I was a drum like child
Marching in beat with myself
More imagination than any book on my shelf
Until, one day, they told me I was lunar
No sooner had I found my rhythm,
I missed a beat
Forced to be discreet
Once a month
Stunned, I was confronted with silence
Patriarchal alliances that confined us
To carry pain and smile
Distracting me with magazines about style
All the while selling me short
Of solutions and support
I wasn’t alone
But the world made it feel so
My part of my own show became smaller
I was falling
I failed to find any tribe
Lost passion and drive
As love passed me by
No heart beats skipped
Time slipped away
Restricted my choices
Replaced them with changes
That cannot be reversed
No rehearsal
The next phase has unfurled
Maze like
Requiring me to find myself again
So now I read words from pens of women
Who have done all this before
Sharing with candour that this part is not like riding a bike,
When these cycles stop
They do not lap shore like
Back
This is a one way track with time
And when it hits noon
The moon will simply move on
As we experience our own coastal erosion
It is the words of all the women who have spoken
That guide me to reclaim myself
And fight all of this internalised shame
No two stories I read are replicas
But there is comfort in connecting us
Back with ourselves
I am learning to take joy in my beat becoming erratic
This is my remix era
Where words of strangers feel like cheerleaders
That mute my inner monologue
Stop it running through a back catalogue of moves I can no longer make
SO powerrful, Lisa. So many brilliant lines and imagery but I keep coming back to 'this is my remix era- HELL YESSS! Thank you for sharing so vulnerably xx
I’d love to hear it read out loud, the half rhymes (not sure if official term but u know what I mean) are glorious. This is one of those poems that will have women the world over nodding. I’m so grateful that you shared it with us. And so happy this feels like a safe place to do so. I feel the same ❤️
Oh, and because I always seem to forget to answer about the poems you share: I really enjoyed each of them - they all hit me a bit differently, and I don't think I could pick a favourite (which is often the case for me).
So succinct yet profound! I can see how this aligns with the feelings of day 19 as 'the waiting makes us squirm'...coming down from that summer high we long to be back in solid ground, re-rooting ourselves for the possible volatility of inner Autumn. x
I’ve been resenting not having the space to give this brilliant theme the time it deserves this week (you can prob tell by my words of frustration below!)… *huffs as she has to stop reading this thread to do the school run!*
- When Women Say No -
Where do the demands on her stop?
Where do her own needs even start?
Like a ball of wool whose end can’t be found,
Threads so tightly wound she can’t uncover her beginning.
Exhaustion burns in her being through centuries of having to bend to yes.
When a woman says no
She’s suddenly a
problem
unreasonable
selfish
‘not coping’
frigid
uncaring
But her no is
intuition rising
to the surface with power
the internal scream no longer silenced
‘keeping the peace’ released in the quest for *real* peace
I have to echo that "her no is intuition rising" is so powerful, Ange. I really understand the frustration with the interruptions - I'm experiencing one right now. 🙄😅
This really resonated, Ange. The rawness of your rage jumps off the page and you articulate what so many of us feel on a regular basis. Do you mind me asking if you know what day you were on? Feels very autumnal/wintery. Thank you for sharing xx
What a great selection, Kim's is my favourite, I need to check out more of her writing. I didn't get around to writing something new for the prompt. I'll offer this one instead. It's more on the theme of cravings than desire.
Thank you Nelly for these poems! <3 I love them all, especially the Yrsa Daley-Ward one. Reminds me of a couple of my girlfriends! "Wearing nothing but lipstick the color of desire". So great!
This weeks collection reminded me of a poem(prose poem?) I wrote on the similar topic, goes like this:
I could slide down this stone staircase, like her favorite cloth. Face, dress, body and all. Hair would follow, I would flow down the stone, rounded and warm from the summer day. I could take a stroll down my own clavicles, on my tiptoes like a dancer, deliver this body wrapped in a dress like a gift.
I could. But I am not going to.
Instead I sit on the staircase, supple and soft. Sipping on wine and glances of people wondering. My left shoe already lost to the abyss, of just one step below. Palm fallen, giddy from the perfume. I think of my mother, and how she could only ever yearn for words spoken by dead poets.
I actually got goosebumps reading this last line Katarina. What an ending. Thanks for sharing it with us ❤️
That last stanza is powerful. And a 'left shoe lost to the abyss, of just one step below,' is genius. The best thing I've read this week. The comments section is where it's all at.
Hahaha :D thank you so much I appreciate it! <3
I love how I can picture this perfectly in my head
This is so evocative and powerful, Katarina, I really enjoyed it 😍
What a scene you've created! The last line is really powerful.
This is beautiful
Beautiful, Katarina. I really felt 'I could. But I'm not going to' x
I adore all those poems so much! Kim Addonizio and Kate Baer are always winners ❤️
This was an extremely quick and rough first draft, but I loved Steph’s prompt and I love Steph’s collection too! 😍🩸
Day 15
I want hands in my hair,
tongue on my skin.
To feel every nerve ending
fizzing with possibility.
I learnt to let go of the shame
a long time ago: the boys
who coveted and derided
my sexuality as a teenager
hardened me to all the accusations
of “Slut!” which would be thrown
my way over the years.
I wear my desire as a badge
now; a sign of my carnal human self
proclaiming
I am alive
I am alive
I am alive.
Oh my goodness yes Ellen. I look back now and wonder whether I always had times in the month like this but never recognised them as such. Did I really have so little connection with my body growing up? Love this. Thanks for making me ponder this morning x
It’s so interesting isn’t it, I notice so many things now - maybe it all does get more intense with age, or perhaps more likely as I don’t take hormonal contraceptives anymore?! I don’t know!
The pill removes our 'inner seasons' and we don't ovulate which means we don't get the. summer high so you'll definitely be experiencing the delicious, full spectrum of it all now! YES! xx
You had me at "I want hands in my hair"
Ah those days, halcyon and wonderful.
Wonderful Ellen x
Yess I can feel the energy of your words 🔥 And to end with the repetition is so evocative of the breath of excitement and what you yourself call the carnal human self proclamation - I am alive!!
Ahh thank you for this lovely comment! 😍
Love this, Ellen. Here's to wearing our desire as a badge. And I love the repetition of 'I am alive'. To be fully alive is to own all our desires! xx
Love it Ellen 🔥
This is such a great prompt. I'm getting this in under the wire and will be back to read everyone's poems tomorrow!
--Day one--
.
I want to sleep. Sleep and sleep.
Two weeks ago I thought about making love
constantly, fervently, with total concentration.
Now I want sleep and a heating pad, warm cat
curled against my side as I nap in a dark bed
eye cover pulled over my face, masking day
into night. I want red wine and a bit of oblivion.
.
Tonight, things aren’t so bad. I’m still a human
and not a red river. Tomorrow, I will start hobbling
as if the aging process happens all in one day
and by nightfall, I will be an old woman
bent in bed against the cramps that crash
and burn my body into an ashy log.
.
Day three will be the same. By day four, I will want
to think there’s life again beyond the toilet stall
and Advil bottle, rattling red beans against white walls
and Tylenol joining them, a long white pill with two round
red ones, phallic in the palm of my hand.
.
I want this to end, but I know the end of the end
will come with its own grief, its own passing
from womanhood that brings babies
to womanhood that has moved beyond them:
a new dimension, a different self, red bird rising
from a bed of glowing coal.
It is just jam packed with realness. Demanded a second read. And the last line 👌You’ve inspired me to try a little something for myself too. Thank you x
Thank you for making this space (you and @Stephanie Moore).
So good 👏. ‘By day four, I will want
to think there’s life again beyond the toilet stall
and Advil bottle’
This is so true. Gosh, what women endure alongside the expectation to just be a smiling linear line 😱
“Gosh, what women endure alongside the expectation to just be a smiling linear line”—hear, hear!
Reading this, I've definitely got it easy, since my babies I don't get cramps any more. I love how your poem circles in on itself going from horny to barren following a woman's monthly/life cycle. Aren't we amazing! (Taps self on back.)
The last part of your comment cracked me up. We are amazing! (Gives self hug.)
Haha especially as it should have read a clap on the back! (Gives self a slap on the wrist.)
😁
Margaret- I can so feel the day 'oneness' of this poem in all of my being! I loved the sleep in direct comparison to the constant thoughts of making love only a couple. of weeks ago. The magnitude of our differing wants- it's extraordinary...WE are extraordinary! x
Thank you, Stephanie! It was such a cool, thoughtful prompt, and I love how you asked us to consider the day we were on as the starting point.
Oh, I know this feeling. And the "rattling red beans against white walls" and the expectation of the grief of not having this particular pain anymore is so evocative for me.
Thank you, A. I’m glad it made emotional sense to you. It’s been really freeing to write poems about my cycle and all the strangeness that comes with it. I spent so many years feeling ashamed, never talking to anyone about it.
Thanks to you and Steph for such brilliant inspiration this week. My response got unexpectedly raw and it is a testament to this group that I feel safe enough to share it here. It is a lengthier poem than I usually post - and I probably will edit it again in the future, but here is my piece:
.
.
I was a drum like child
Marching in beat with myself
More imagination than any book on my shelf
Until, one day, they told me I was lunar
No sooner had I found my rhythm,
I missed a beat
Forced to be discreet
Once a month
Stunned, I was confronted with silence
Patriarchal alliances that confined us
To carry pain and smile
Distracting me with magazines about style
All the while selling me short
Of solutions and support
I wasn’t alone
But the world made it feel so
My part of my own show became smaller
I was falling
I failed to find any tribe
Lost passion and drive
As love passed me by
No heart beats skipped
Time slipped away
Restricted my choices
Replaced them with changes
That cannot be reversed
No rehearsal
The next phase has unfurled
Maze like
Requiring me to find myself again
So now I read words from pens of women
Who have done all this before
Sharing with candour that this part is not like riding a bike,
When these cycles stop
They do not lap shore like
Back
This is a one way track with time
And when it hits noon
The moon will simply move on
As we experience our own coastal erosion
It is the words of all the women who have spoken
That guide me to reclaim myself
And fight all of this internalised shame
No two stories I read are replicas
But there is comfort in connecting us
Back with ourselves
I am learning to take joy in my beat becoming erratic
This is my remix era
Where words of strangers feel like cheerleaders
That mute my inner monologue
Stop it running through a back catalogue of moves I can no longer make
I may finally learn, to give myself a break
This is brilliance 🙌
‘Patriarchal alliances that confined us
To carry pain and smile’…and so many more lines that are 👌. Thank you for writing this Lisa x
thank you for reading it.. I was nervous sharing it
SO powerrful, Lisa. So many brilliant lines and imagery but I keep coming back to 'this is my remix era- HELL YESSS! Thank you for sharing so vulnerably xx
Lisa this has made me feel really emotional. It’s beautiful ❤️
I love this, Lisa. The rhythm throughout really compliments the subject, and the imagery! It's so powerful.
I do write with the rhythm in mind maybe I’ll put on my own page with a voice recording at some point.
I’d love to hear it read out loud, the half rhymes (not sure if official term but u know what I mean) are glorious. This is one of those poems that will have women the world over nodding. I’m so grateful that you shared it with us. And so happy this feels like a safe place to do so. I feel the same ❤️
Please do!! 🙏
These poems are fabulous! I didn’t have time to write but I’m going to take one of these to my solstice writing group tomorrow!
I wrote this one earlier this spring, but this would have been around day 19 of my cycle.
Earthworm
One taste
of my hands
in the soil
and I'm hooked,
writhing,
biding my time
until I get to climb
back in, and the waiting
makes me squirm.
I want to feel
the earth, firm
in my fingers
again. Please
sever me
from whatever
tethers me to
anything that is not
this patch of dirt.
It hurts
to be pulled
apart, and kept
separate from
the thing that is
most nourishing
to my soul;
let me go.
Oh lovely. I really like the flow of it on the ‘page’, the way my eyes are taken on a beautiful winding path 🥰
Thank you! I know depending on the browser/app the formatting may not hold, but I figured I'd share it that way just in case.
I love this - so vivid
I love how visceral this is 😍
Oh, and because I always seem to forget to answer about the poems you share: I really enjoyed each of them - they all hit me a bit differently, and I don't think I could pick a favourite (which is often the case for me).
So succinct yet profound! I can see how this aligns with the feelings of day 19 as 'the waiting makes us squirm'...coming down from that summer high we long to be back in solid ground, re-rooting ourselves for the possible volatility of inner Autumn. x
Oo, deep in there this one.
Oh I love these choices Nelly.
I’ve been resenting not having the space to give this brilliant theme the time it deserves this week (you can prob tell by my words of frustration below!)… *huffs as she has to stop reading this thread to do the school run!*
- When Women Say No -
Where do the demands on her stop?
Where do her own needs even start?
Like a ball of wool whose end can’t be found,
Threads so tightly wound she can’t uncover her beginning.
Exhaustion burns in her being through centuries of having to bend to yes.
When a woman says no
She’s suddenly a
problem
unreasonable
selfish
‘not coping’
frigid
uncaring
But her no is
intuition rising
to the surface with power
the internal scream no longer silenced
‘keeping the peace’ released in the quest for *real* peace
Her no a gateway to her true yes
I have to echo that "her no is intuition rising" is so powerful, Ange. I really understand the frustration with the interruptions - I'm experiencing one right now. 🙄😅
HER NO IS INTUITION RISING ! amazing line
COULDN"T AGREE MORE!!!
But her no is … to the surface with power 😘
Oh, Ange, this resonates so deeply - as I’m sure it will with many of us. Thank you for sharing 🙌🏻 I love the ball of wool image 🧶
Thanks Ellen (and great emoji!)
This really resonated, Ange. The rawness of your rage jumps off the page and you articulate what so many of us feel on a regular basis. Do you mind me asking if you know what day you were on? Feels very autumnal/wintery. Thank you for sharing xx
Winter arrived the day after!! 🍂 🔥 🥶
What a great selection, Kim's is my favourite, I need to check out more of her writing. I didn't get around to writing something new for the prompt. I'll offer this one instead. It's more on the theme of cravings than desire.
https://treasapurcell.substack.com/p/bukowski-as-antidote-to-pms?r=1onf76
Oh I absolutely love this Treasa!!! So glad you shared it ❤️
Thanks so much for the read and kind comment Ellen.
Lovely ☺️
Such a poignant piece. Love the section on seeking refuge. That is EXACTLY what we're attempting to do. Thank you for sharing xx
Thanks so much Zoe. I feel a whole lot of cringe with this one, but I'm trying to own it by sharing.
Nelly this post is delicious! Thanks for sharing these emboldened poems!
https://open.substack.com/pub/tamchennell/p/poetry-pals-week-24-poetry-that-wants?r=2mh4vu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web My rather long contribution is here, a long form poem cos been experimenting with such, though I’ve now moved onto haibuns.
Loved it
Tamsin I was completely absorbed by this, I really love what you did with it 😍
Thank you so much
Great minds, you know, always thinking alike. ☺️
About to sit down with a coffee and read all these wanting responses. 🔥 x Thank you for sharing your words x
Your prompt was 🔥 x
She Lingers in Fragrance
In a room where light bends softly through the glass,
perfume waits—
a quiet, treacherous thing.
Not loud.
Not like the wreckage of afternoons
that left us breathless and red,
but like a whisper that knows your name
without asking.
It starts with bergamot;
a crisp, citrus soliloquy
that speaks of sunlit rooms
and forgotten letters in old drawers.
There is a cleverness to its entrance,
the way it curls around the collar,
nonchalant,
a philosopher musing on the skin.
Follow the scent to vetiver,
deep and thrumming below,
like a cello in the pit of the night.
It tells you things you shouldn't hear—
of earth, damp and raw,
of roots that clutch secrets,
beneath.
And then, the jasmine,
a sudden, white-hot flame of flowers.
It's almost too much,
how it demands to be felt
as if it could undo the buttons of your dress,
one petal at a time,
each a sigh
and a scream.
This is how scent talks to us—
not in words,
but in pulses,
in the sudden leap of the heart
when a door opens
and the world shifts,
just slightly,
into the shape of someone you used to love.
It’s the kind of communication
that happens
in the gaps between moments,
when you catch a trace of something
like memory,
or desire,
or perhaps just the shadow of the afternoon
turning into evening,
turning into something you can't quite catch.
This perfume,
it doesn’t just sit quietly on your wrist,
it walks through the halls of your loneliness,
echoing,
turning everything it touches
into a story about longing.
About the infinite space
between molecules of air,
and skin,
and the next breath
that might just
change everything.
Beautiful
Thank you!
Oohhh 'To Take Back a Life' - how gutsy ❤️
Oh I love these pins but my favourite? The red dress! ✨
The red dress :) how I live now
MIDLIFE SAPPHIC AWAKENING: A CARTOGRAPHY
at forty, desire recalibrates like a compass finding true north
was the needle always drawn this way, beneath the surface?
* * *
CONSIDER: mid-life sapphic realization as
1) tectonic shift of self-perception
2) retroactive illumination of past moments
3) bifurcation of possible futures
how many lives can one lifetime contain?
* * *
ETYMOLOGY:
Sapphic (adj.) from Σαπφώ (Sappho), Greek poet, c. 630-570 BCE
is every woman's awakening an echo across millennia?
* * *
muscle memory of heteronormative gestures
now unlearning relearning
(the body: a text being rewritten)
* * *
OVERHEARD AT A WOMEN'S COCKTAIL HOUR:
"It's like I've been reading a book upside down"
"No, like I've just put on the right prescription"
clarity: sometimes a gradual focus
* * *
past / future
selves selves
in
dia
logue
(present self: the hyphen in a compound word)
* * *
if life were a map
would this be an X marking treasure or a new continent?
cartography of the heart: eternally redraftable
* * *
FRAGMENT FROM A JOURNAL ENTRY:
"I recognize her now in every mirror - was she always there?"
quantum entanglement of past and present selves
* * *
in youth: certainty, defined paths
in midlife: questions, forking roads
what freedoms are found in reimagining?
* * *
LITERARY NOTE:
Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf: "I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia."
how many unwritten sapphic stories hide in the margins of history?
* * *
in the end, all identities are works-in-progress
(but oh, how vibrantly we bloom when we finally name ourselves)