Corporeal Writing Solstice Succor
More Non-Perishables And Heart-Lifters
Sent With Love From Our Squad
:::
A Note from Lidia:
A Solstice Secular Prayer for You
Everything moves from out of the dark.
That's a line from one of my beloved sister Brigid's poems. It's also a line I hold in my heart as a reminder that change is the core of existence. We at Corporeal are undergoing change, adaptation, the push-pull of all organisms, and we wanted to express our collective gratitude to YOU, you phenomenal creatures, for both keeping us alive and keeping us from giving up or in. We hope that what we create gives you some solace, respite, creative expression space that is meaningful. We always want to know what else we could be creating and collaborating with you to make art in the face of fuck.
May your hearts hold while we all give our all to holding each other through this fuckfest and into the unknown. May we find new forms that yet bring us to wonder.
Thanks to YOU, we were able to hire a new squad person, Anya Pearson, who also just finished piloting the world's greatest BIPOC creativity collaboration. AND WHO WAS JUST NAMED A 2021-2022 HODDER FELLOW BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY!!!!!!!!
Thanks to YOU, Pamela K. Santos created a BIPOC generative writing Space Lab.
Thanks to YOU, we were able to offer our first international collaboration with Roe McDermott; watch for her again in the Winter.
Thanks to YOU, we were able to launch a creative publication space, Khôra, curated by Leigh Hopkins.
Thanks to YOU, the Corporeal Valkyries, a BIPOC creative trust and incubation squad is fiercely conjuring.
Thanks to YOU, our Winter line-up includes Terese Mailhot, Carter Sickles, Chelsea Hicks, Roe McDermott, Janice Lee, Nana-Ama Danquah and more.
Thanks to YOU, Domi, Daniel, and Katie were able to both hold things together as well as imagine a new event horizon.
In other words, YOU are the rest of us (mwwwaaaahhhhhh) and we're glowing with gratitude inside and out.
And you saved us from ZOOM hades every dang day. Your faces. Your hearts. Your kindness and generosity.
We offer you these collective gifts from our hearts to yours.
With fiercely gentle love from us all,
Lidia
Andy
Domi
Daniel
Katie
Anya
Leigh
(and an entire ARK of animals, who, as you probably suspect, are secretly running things)
Andy
For this holiday season my plan is to replace the bridge on my cello and get the bow rehaired so that I can start pecking away at some cello pieces I always wanted to play. Here's a list of links to some of what will be my first songs back:
Domi
Hello, everyone.
I wanted to send a care package that represents what I do to keep myself afloat on the hardest days. My writing these days comes out in short intense bursts and I trust that I will figure out how they fit together later. At first I found that very frustrating, but I started foraging around in my unconscious brain and the thing I kept hearing was pushing me to use my eyes and capture or make images that make me think outside myself. Even if the image is me, the messages are for everyone to take in and ascribe their own meaning.
I also included a playlist that gets me moving in a gentle and fluid way.
I hope you get something from these.
All Love,
Domi
Katie
Dearest Comrades,
As we enter fully into the season of moss and mushrooms, bare branches and varietal skies pumping rain and magnificent sunsets, I am meditating hard on what I’m grateful for, and also how important it is to take care of myself.
Some things that have helped me these past months are two collaborations I participated in with Nana-Ama, most recently Janice Lee, (both of whom are returning this coming year for more!), the Young Mammals Zine Collective I led, and the write now series that I help facilitate. Being a part of this community is everything to me, and one of the parts of all this I’m most grateful for is you all. And this badass squad I get to work with.
I don’t usually get my motivation and inspiration in winter, which is kind of strange since I was born in January, early in the morning; however, this year I’m feeling it riling up inside my body.
I’ve been dreaming of the center a lot lately. One thing I do know: Even without that physical space to gather and hug and dream and write in, you have helped keep the space that is Corporeal Writing alive with your hearts and writing and support, and that is everything.
I painted this a couple months ago after I dreamed it.
Transmogrifying Old Growth, Acrylic on paper, Katie Collins-Guinn, 2020
So hang on comrades, and keep holding one another in turns. Thank you for being all that you are. And keep finding the majestic treasures that hide in the skies and the moss and the cracks of the pavement. That shit will save you.
We love you. I love you.
Katie
Here’s some things that have also helped me through.
Music I'm obsessively listening to: (these are all Spotify links)
Movies that I've watched for the first time recently that blew me away:
In the Realm of the Senses (Director: Nagisa Ōshima)
First Cow (Director: Kelly Reichardt)
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Director: Charlie Kauffman)
Mandy (Director: Panos Cosmatos)
La Llorona (Director: Jayro Bustamante)
Blood Quantum (Director: Jeff Barnaby)
BOOKS:
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others In America, By Kiese Laymon
Dien Cai Dau, by Yusef Komunyakaa
Dear Girls, by Ali Wong
Verge, by Lidia Yuknavitch (AGAIN!!!)
When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chodron
Katie’s favorite carrot cake she invented, because she never liked carrot cake before
Ingredients:
· 2 cups all-purpose flour
· 2 teaspoons baking powder
· 2 teaspoons baking soda
· 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
· 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 1 pound carrots, peeled, shredded (about 2 cups packed)
· 1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
· 2 cups packed light brown sugar
· 4 eggs
· 1/2 cup buttermilk
· 1/2 cup safflower oil
What to do:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat two (9-inch) round cake pans with cooking spray or butter.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt; mix well.
In a large mixing bowl with paddle attachment, combine remaining ingredients. Set to medium speed, stir flour mixture into carrot mixture until well combined. Divide batter between cake pans.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes, then invert onto wire racks to cool completely.
Cream cheese frosting:
· 1 cup (2 sticks) room temperature salted butter
· 2, 8oz packages of cream cheese, room temperature
· 1 tsp vanilla
· 4 cups powdered sugar, sifted.
Beat butter and cream cheese in mixing bowl with whisk attachment, blend on medium/high speed until light and fluffy about 5-7 minutes.
Add sifted sugar ½ cup at a time (reduce to slowest speed when adding and then increase to medium to mix well).
Add vanilla and let set on counter until ready to frost cooled cake.
Place 1 cake layer upside-down on a serving plate and frost top with Cream Cheese Frosting. Place second layer over first and frost top and sides. Cover loosely and chill at least 3 hours before serving.
Anya
Hello Corporeal Family,
Today, I sit in gratitude.
This year has taught me so much about grief, loss, sadness, anger, rage, fury, community, isolation, longing, loneliness, loveliness, friendship, laughter, skin-shedding, cocoons, growth, retreat, silence, acceptance.
I am amazed by our capacity to hold multiple truths.
The more I settle into the truth of myself, the more I am able to step into the power of embracing the fullness of the moments that used to overwhelm me, suffocate me, drown me; the more room I create for the moments that fill me with joy.
My care package includes a list of books by the phenomenal guest artists who were part of the BIPOC creativity collective that I launched after officially joining the CW Squad. There's also a little poem from me. I am so grateful to the amazing Guest Artists, to all of the people that journeyed with me in this pilot program, to the rest of the CW Squad for welcoming me home, and to all of you. I am grateful for you too.
Hugs, (but not real ones right now - stay home and stay safe - seriously)
Anya
Books
Samiya Bashir—Field Theories
Kiese Laymon—How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
Roxane Gay—Hunger
Dominique Christina—Anarcha Speaks
…and the photography of Intisar Abioto: https://www.intisarabioto.com/
And this poem from yours truly:
Daniel
Before anything else, the gift I would like to pass on to you is one that my therapist gave me recently after watching me struggle for months to be creative and then endlessly make myself feel like shit for not really getting any writing done: he suggested that I just give myself a break from writing, and commit to NOT doing any of it for a few weeks. I’m a couple weeks into this new strange paradigm of not hitching my self-worth to my productivity as we approach the solstice and, by Jove, I feel pretty fucking great. I know I’ll get it to it again at some point, just as I know the same is for you if you’re also struggling, but remember: we’re living through a really tough time. Follow my lead and give yourself a break!
Plus, that leaves plenty more time for reading. I thought I’d recommend some of my favorite of the 69 (I know: Nice.) books I’ve read this year.
Five Fictions
Sarah Moss - Summerwater - a lovely novel of linked stories set in a single rainy summer day in a vacation community in Scotland. My favorite book I read this year.
Susan Choi - Trust Exercise
Lucy Ellman - Ducks, Newburyport
Vanessa Veselka - The Great Offshore Grounds
Brandon Taylor - Real Life
Nine Non-Fictions
Patrick Radden Keefe - Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland - my favorite non-fiction of the year, reads like a novel, just swept me away!
Heather Christle - The Crying Book (I died one thousand times while reading this)
T Kira Madden - Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
Audre Lorde - Sister Outsider
Heather Thompson - Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy
Lois Ruskai Melina - The Grammar of Untold Stories
Kiese Laymon - Heavy
Paul Lisicky - Later
Samantha Irby - Wow, No Thank You