 | Jamie Hennick is an adventurous gal who loves to travel, write and meet new people. Jamie is studying to get her MBA in Nonprofit Management and MA in Coexistence and Conflict, looking for a career in peace-building education. Jamie is a teacher specializing in literacy and creative writing, working to build curricula that builds resiliency and empowerment for children in conflict-zones. She is currently based out of Boston but her heart belongs to the earth. |
4/30/15
Each child is a superhero. I wish they could
hold onto the glow that makes them scream
uninhibited- feel infinitely happy to get something
as simple as a sticker and run because it is fun, not
because something is chasing them.
Each child should be able to grow taller each year, fill
bigger shoes without checking over their
shoulder at the turn of every corner and
crossing of every street.
Each child should be able to grow in schools
that empower and lift not doubt, criticize or easily
ignore the hunger, abuse and affliction witnessed in the home.
It is my wish that children can grow in the hands of adults
who have also grown in the hands of adults who have
also grown in the hands of the adults who have grown in the
hands of adults who decided to become the adults
to make change for them. It is my wish that children can
be the future and have the world while they become it.
—
4/29/15
This is a video of you
pausing by the garbage can on the corner of
your street. Remember the feeling of surprise
and joy you have when you realize there’s a planter of tulips next to it
and wonder, how long has that been there?
Remember that feeling- that someone is taking care of
you.
—
4/28/15
Don’t blow away and I will hold
onto your clammy hands.
Don’t blow away, and I will hold
you away from the gusts wrapping, even
though you like being pushed to the windows.
You will crawl to the end of possibility by the
end of every rapid year, my arms open, pulling
in many ways until your senses
come inside.
—
4/27/15
Girls without freedom-
happening everywhere with some shadow
casting over and silencing
strength.
Denied the magic of reading,
writing, feeling, speaking, running, earning, deciding…
happening everywhere woman is taken from woman-
thrown downstream in sewers unattended
coursing through
in this world that should be so much greater
than sex by now.
—
4/26/15
You’re fat like us!
It meant no harm.
It was harmless.
It was a comment in passing
just to further point out that my sister,
tall and skinny,
did not look like me.
—
4/25/15
Goddess
unheard
uncared
unwept.
Kept.
Strong.
rises strangely
powerfully
like an open flower
moon slicing through
gauze clouds over the ocean.
—
4/24/15
The face of a goddess,
hair of a mermaid,
eyes dark almonds capturing
experience.
The face of her grandmother
as many have pointed out,
dark hair of her ancestry,
framing thick eyebrows and a
nose that combines the ‘beak’ and the ‘schnoz’
of her respective grandfathers.
The face that shares smiles and laughs
with sisters and misters,
mothers and fathers,
students, flora and fauna.
The face that soaks the sun in
places near and far, seeking shade
under pine, redwood, palm and porch
just looking to savor to the light
shining down and from within.
The face that glows even when wrenched
with tears, fears… or beers.
It’s a face that lives.
—
4/23/15
We enter the world as strangers, reaching for love.
We enter the world ready to embrace
learn
feel.
We enter the world soft, impressionable
a work of art waiting to be born,
just learning who the artists are to best form
our image. Learning slowly who to keep
and the power in trusting your own artistry.
—
It confuses me.
4/22/15
The summer heat is sucked from the sky as the sun sinks below the tree line. Cicadas awaken in nightly chorus and the pool water laps methodically with the night lap swimmers. I, dry but weighed down in the day’s chlorine, walk in circles around the water, sure not to step on the pool tile border cracks, my child foot fitting perfectly in the small rectangles. I’m drafting a story, one that I do not remember, that’s real, vivid and characters surely to change the world. I walked slowly, dipping my toe every so often and changing direction of my pace. Geese fly over in V formation, silhouettes cutting through cloudy sunset skies. I pay attention to nothing but these rhythms and my own words, racing thoughts, vision of my stories coming alive like the night sounds swirling around the ripples set in motion by the tips of my chipped paint toes.
—
4/21/15
The child who runs to me
screaming and
smiling with pride because she
did a flip on the monkey bars for the
first time—
Smiling back,
I cannot ignore the tears in her sleeves,
the unclean, uncared nature of her self,
something which she does not yet realize the
magnitude of.
I give her a hug for this small-big triumph
because I want to
and because no one else will.
—
4/19/15
Some days have only
the exhalations of this
short, mystery type.
—
4/18/15
I find comfort in
memories, ebbing slowly
over present thought
or appearing at my side,
jolting memories, constricting like
finding someone by your side
after an arrival unannounced.
I find comfort in thoughts of why I am
and who I used to be-
clean and dirtied mirrors
building images, shining light
fragmented wholeness,
comforting in asymmetric
beauty.
—
4/17/15
The first book I fell in love with was the one
read to me in voices sweeter than a lullaby-
the one with pages crisp and sending breezes of memories
into the air with every page turn-
rich color coming to life in
voices shifting
and all belonging to my father-
the story of a lion slinking through the jungle or
adjusting his crown-
cuddled together, little sisters in sock-padded feet,
we scream AGAIN AGAIN
so as to stay up past bedtime
in the laughter
and bliss of this little world.
—
4/16/15
Found Poem
In terms of the long-term future,
look to the lunar calendar.
April 2015, let good things
happen to you today.
Cupcakes and holidays, all pass in
an instant. Let the sunsets on Stinson Beach
remind you of your beauty within.
—
4/15/15
I’m a car in motion-
indicator blinking-
between lanes, drifting-
making shadows-
pulling shadows-
stopping,
starting,
slamming- on brakes and steering wheel-
just trying to get somewhere and ending up
on my street.
—
4/14/15
Come on. It is not because I love your sisters more. You
cannot believe that. It’s not because they are prettier
or skinnier or more worthy. It’s because I had to take
one of them to basketball practice and the other to ballet
…I’m sorry that you had to go with dad. He’s clueless, I know. But I really don’t know why you’re so upset.
Because he told me that nothing fit me and that he has the same trouble at Big and Tall.
Like, aren’t you over it? Didn’t you get jeans? Are you still wearing jeans?
I would be appreciative that you have a parent who cared enough to take you shopping,
if I were you.
I always get hand me downs. And they always get to go on special trips.
I’m sorry you feel that way but that’s the way it had to be.
My mom never took me shopping either. I always got hand me downs.
I was a self-conscious thirteen-year-old girl and couldn’t find jeans that fit and was shopping with my father who was just as clueless as I that there was another department. Problems created for no reason.
That’s it, I can’t talk about this anymore. Can you pass me the remote?
—
4/13/15
Understand others. The ones who cut you off in
traffic when you are in just as much of a hurry.
The co-workers who have made you cry in secret
silence in a bathroom stall on your lunch break.
The friends who left you sitting alone in your apartment,
drinking wine and eating pizza alone because they
all couldn’t make it to your birthday, understand them.
The sisters who called you fat and led you to wear
sweatshirts for years so your curves wouldn’t show,
leaving you to deeply despise the body that trapped you.
You are meant to look in the mirror. Understand others
so you don’t get stuck standing for hours, poking at your problems
and creating new ones because someone slipped a side glare that made you feel dishonest.
You’ve revisited these moments too many times, wondering
what you did, how is it your fault. Understand others, so that
your compassion may warm a coldness another has paved
in ice. You’ve traveled far in and out of these spin cycles,
grasping smooth edges to try to hold on. Understand yourself,
create your own reflection. Artistry of gods. Strengthened
from within. Breathe. Don’t let yourself become the center
of all ill will. You’re not. Let’s stop here, beneath this tree,
and breathe in the confidence of its shade.
—
4/12/15
Let me go. Your talking
is creator
of my hurt. There’s a knife,
butcher’s, in every word,
flailing at me from every angle.
The work of being whole
is always trouble, a different
flailing, scrambling to
hold on.
—
4/11/15
Saturated dream,
I run through and away from
things I cannot see.
Heart racing, I wake
hugging myself back toward
reality. I
wake with stripes of sun
shine cradling me while I scramble
to reconstruct why.
—
4/10/15
I say to myself,
say anything.
but my voice is restricted
for once.
I want to tell everyone where the marshmallows
in my pockets came from. It wasn’t from Mr Lawrence.
I WANT TO SCREAM.
SAY ANYTHING?
I have so much to say,
too much to say. Like,
who is going to listen? My
cousin’s fuck buddy?
—
—
—
Highest Lady
colors folds into light,
drapes into darkness,
crags over water.
peace needs no eyes,
harmony no sound.
just still tranquility,
an aspiration at the banks where
water laps land.
—
Resilient
And they ask
is everything alright? Yes you
say while your organs sigh-slash-collapse-slash
choke.
your brain contracts and
stress juice juices from your arteries.
you teach school-children to be
honest
when you yourself cannot tell the truth.
I’m still collecting myself .
—
waxing and waning our experience
ebbs and flows in rhythms
unpredictable.
we are built up
broken down,
ground down,
pulled through.
we build,
rebuild,
rebuild,
rebuild.
our work is never over
but we are fortunate to
have this unending list.
—
female connection tells me
the moon’s power days without looking at a chart.
uncontrollable
fuerza,
emotions untamed by reason.
validation by the sight of
moon
suspended in
sky.
—
Renewal
time marked by annual gatherings
around long tables free flowing
with familiar conversation and food prepared
with measured tedium, immeasurable care.
pressed table cloths and carefully crafted
centerpieces, visual staccatos, punctuate
the warmth, the din of family.
new cousins learning to read participate for the first time,
and the little victories are celebrated together.
hands applause and hands
held squeezes pulsing around remembering those no longer
seated at the table.
we release hands, feeling again a lightness of
renewal.
time marked by annual gatherings,
tradition leading us from darkness,
circling back through the ages.
time marked by annual gatherings
around long tables free flowing with
reminiscence, roots we must tend to together.
pain remembered,
triumph celebrated,
we are a reservoir of stories.
—
Let me say–
Is that a statement, or a question?
Assertion or permission?
The word please- an implication?
In voice we have power,
find confidence,
find meaning.
With voice we move forward,
get better,
be better.
And voice is how we know each other,
it’s where we meet,
it’s the agency of empathy.
And yet, so many are forced to silence,
pushed to margins of existence where they
only speak in compliant whispers, barely breaking the
barriers of sound, parched by worldly tribulations.
Why must so many beg for their right
to say,
to be heard? Why have so many never sung the solo
or in chorus of their own
Empowerment?
–Don’t let me say,
Don’t make me ask and question if I am
worthy.
Make room,
give me space,
give me breath.–
The alternative-
if we don’t,
who will own the solitary say?
—
My “Process”
The notebooks, always nestled in quiet places,
await this writing fury, always
wait for my inner roar to populate their pages-
waiting…
waiting…
waiting for me to come alive.
It’s all magnetic then…
pens to paper,
pencils to post-its and fingers to keys-
one second I’m sitting and the next-
I’m writing ferociously. hungrily. as if the world
will implode if and when I finish a line.
Sacred scribbles fill the page,
arrows link thoughts and
asterisks start new ones–
until before me is
a map the world has yet to see.
The notebooks, always nestled in quiet places,
await this writing fury, always
wait for my inner roar to populate their pages-
waiting…
waiting…
waiting for me to come alive.