BLOG OF THE WEEK - AN UPDATE WITH CARRIE VAN HORN

This week we are zooming to Texas, to catch up with one of our very first members at Poets United, Carrie Van Horn, who has been with us since 2010.  Carrie has several blogs, including A Net Full of Butterflies, Dancing  With Elephants, and What  a Seagull Never Told You. Let's pour a cup of tea and see what she has been up to since we last spoke.

Sherry: Carrie, we last caught up with you in 2016. Would you bring us up to date? How are you doing? 

Carrie: Since then, I have had two major life changing experiences.  I survived Hurricane Harvey in 2017, but most of my belongings and apartment did not.  We moved to a sister apartment for 6 months, but at the advice of my kids, I purchased a house and am blessed to be living in a house in Humble, Tx for the last year. 

Sherry: My goodness! I didn't know you had gone through that! I am so glad your kids convinced you to buy a house, and are now comfortable, safe and sound.

Carrie:  Then it is with a great sorrow I share that we lost my oldest granddaughter Lauren Nicole to addiction last July.  There really are not words to express the heartache of that time.  It has been over 6 months and there is not a day that goes by that the loss is not stirring in our hearts.  I have a poem that I wrote for her; it is called, “Soul Song”.  Lauren loved music, and that is part of what inspired that poem.

Sherry: Carrie, there is nothing more heartbreaking in the world than to lose a child, all that light, all that promise, gone almost before she began to live. I am so very sorry. Our profound sympathy to you and your family.

SOUL SONG

Neither height nor depth can measure the possibilities of the human soul.

~James Lendall Basford

I am feathered in grief love and longing and I am caged in skin and bone

I hold the knowledge of something greater beckoning me onward

and calling me home.

Life must be perched closely but it cannot be held too tight.

It is a ballad that must not be silent and bird that has to fly.

Birds are kindred spirits never meant to perch right here for long.

As we are called to something bigger, we have a greater song.

This song rises within us like a sparrow unto its nest

Stirring like falling feathers from what once was to what is next.

The soul is a mighty presence that can ride the wind like birds in flight.

It is bigger than scientific theories, yet smaller than our sight.

It is a guest in a God made palace that someday will crumble down.

In a journey full of lessons of being lost and then being found.

For I am feathered in grief love and longing and caged in skin and bone

I hold the knowledge of something greater beckoning me onward

and calling me home.

For Lauren

source

Sherry: So very moving, and beautiful. "When we are called to something bigger, we have a greater song." She has such light in her face. A beautiful light gone out too soon.

Do you find writing helps you get through the tough times, Carrie?

Carrie: I have found over most of my life, that my muse seems the most alive when I am going through something difficult or heartbreaking.  Writing seems to help me share my feelings of loss and communicate my thoughts of what is happening before me.  So writing truly does help me cope in hard times

Sherry:   Me, too. I seem to process everything in my poems. I don't know what people do who don't write. Thank you for sharing Lauren with us, Carrie. We wish you and your family strength in your grief.  

Let's take a look at your poem “Head In the Clouds”, about being a poet.

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

I am a poet and if I look right through you like you’re a window 

on a rainy afternoon

It is because my head is in the clouds dear friend

Pondering life like a scientist searches for a cure to the latest disease

I am a poet and if I walk right passed you like a snobby model on her way to 

a runway gig

It is because my head is in the clouds dear friend

Noticing the smallest things around me that inspire a poem

Like a geologist excavating through the smallest of rubble for bones

I am a poet and if I seem quiet like a shy child out in the city

It is because my head is in the clouds dear friend

My thoughts are louder than the voices around me

Like drums in a flute festival they drown out all other sounds

I am a poet and if I watch you like a kitten watches the red dot

It is because my head is in the clouds dear friend

Like a lover is fascinated by his latest love,

I will make you immortal in one stanza of poetry.

"This is Chance.

He is the sweetest dog ever."

Sherry: I so relate to looking through people because one’s head is in the clouds. Smiles.  I love the line about making someone immortal in a stanza of poetry. And I love your sweet boy, Chance.

How has blogging impacted your work and your life?

Carrie:  What I have loved about blogging is that from the beginning I felt it gave me a voice out beyond my desk; an audience that was truly listening, and could relate to me as a writer.  It has been such a blessing to meet so many other talented and inspiring writers at Poets United and all over blogger and word press. It has enriched my life and my writing in so many ways.   I have made so many amazing friends, and all of these gifted people have inspired me so much!  

I have definitely written more over the years because of all the great prompt sites, like Poets United, Imaginary Gardens, Magpie Tales, and many more.

  

Sherry: Me, too. I have written more since I came online than in my whole life before.

You have written very movingly about having lost your mother young, which impacted you profoundly.  Your prose piece “The Remembering”, and your poem “It Takes a Village” talk about this. Let’s look at the poem:

source

IT TAKES A VILLAGE         

If we lose our mother young
we search our whole life for her
in the faces of strangers
in the arms of those we hold dear
all the roads we take
lead to questions
we never ask
the silence of the unknowing

becomes the song we always sing

yet somewhere in the place

of holding on and letting go

we find

that she is all around us

in the void there is an outpouring

that fills up some of the empty places

women have a way of nurturing

the lost child

like the lioness in the pride

will care for another's young

the motherless child

will grow up

and one day

look back

and realize

they found many mothers

God provides one way or another

and that is the answer

to the questions

of a lost child.

Sherry: Beautiful, Carrie. This is very moving. 

Carrie: The poem was written for a photo prompt site I started with a fellow friend and blogger, Chrissa at Moon Pools and Mermaids.  I had recently written an essay about the memory of my Mom, who passed away when I was 9 years old, and the feeling I had over the years of grief was fresh on my mind.  The photo of the child reminded me of how in my loss of having a mother, many women came into my life, that became mentors, encouragers and true mothers.  The poem just grew from there. 

Sherry: It is wonderful how life sends us the people we need. I am glad other mothers found you, Carrie.

Carrie: It is a subject I have written about more than a couple times, because it was such a defining part of, not just my childhood, but my whole life.  I am delighted you loved it.

Sherry: I am wondering, thinking about this event in your childhood, when did you begin to write poetry? Do you remember that first poem and what it was about? How big was discovering poetry in your life?

Carrie:  A wonderful question Sherry.  I remember it very clearly.  I was 11 years old.  My father had just re-married, and due to a shortage of space at home for my 2 step brothers, my brother, and me, I had to give up my room.  All my belongings got packed up except clothes, so I did not have my toys to play with anymore.  I always watched a lot of television, and did some reading, but one day in boredom I sat at a desk and for no real reason, decided to write a poem.  

We lived in Sanger Tx and had a large piece of property.  It was an old house, and there were many wonderful trees.  I decided to write about my home and the trees.  It was called my forever home, and after I was finished, it made me feel good inside.  My love of writing grew from there, but I went many years without writing from my later teens to 30.  Most of my writing started in my early 30s.

Sherry: Is there another poem you would like to share with us? 

Carrie: I guess the extra one I added at the beginning about sweet Lauren could be that one, but if you are okay with me adding another one here, then I would choose, “The Only Way Out is Through”  It was written about my experience in Hurricane Harvey.

THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH

"We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear."

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

A wise poet once said, "The only way out is through",

 and when it comes to flooding that can be very true.

Sometimes you turn around and leave the way you came

and others it surrounds you and there is no quick escape.

You can start to wade through it or try to walk against the tide

but when it comes to flooding you're better off with a boat ride.

So as you hold your two allotted bags and leave the home you knew

remember with most recoveries the only way out is through.

The view of our apartment before we were rescued out by boat.

(Keep in mind this is on stilts already.  That is how high the water was already!)

It seems that the only time I get in a boat is to escape flooding.  I went through this a year and a half ago and again recently with "Harvey".  You do not realize how powerful water can be until you see it rush through an area and take up the land like a raging giant. I have grown to have a very respectful fear of water.  Frankly sometimes I feel like moving to Arizona, but all my family is here and here is where I will stay, just not on the lower floor of these apartments.  So many people in this area are trying to completely start over their lives with new homes or gutting out and rebuilding the ones they are in.  So much loss and so much to do to renovate and move on.  It is much like true recovery, where one must face the problems at hand, dig through the rubble, endure the cleanup, and carry it through to completion.  Like so many solutions in life, truly the only way out is through.

Sherry: Yes, there are times when the only way out is through. That water was deep! How scary!

Congratulations on having a book out, Carrie. It is beautiful. I love the title!

   

Available here.

Sherry: What other interests do you pursue when you aren't writing, Carrie?

Carrie: Over the last few years, I have been delving in drawing. My mother was an artist, and it has always fascinated and inspired me. It does not come natural for me, but I enjoy it.

Sherry: It's wonderful you share that gift with your mother, Carrie. Your work is beautiful! It must be so satisfying, creating something with your imagination that wasn't there before. Much like a poem, come to think of it.

Number one destination on your Bucket List?

Carrie: I would love to go to Ireland. That is where the grandmother I was named after was from. Carrie Lee Meredith.

Sherry: Best book you've read recently?

Carrie: I know it sounds bad, but I do not read much. The last book I read cover to cover that I loved was "The Secret Life of Bees".

Sherry: Favourite song?

Carrie: I have many songs I love, but I guess if I had to choose a favorite it would be "Stones In the Road" by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Sherry: Thanks for this visit, Carrie. We would like to thank you for your loyalty all these years. We love your poetry and are so lucky we get to read it! Is there anything you'd like to say to Poets United?

Carrie: I am very honored to be featured here at Poets United. So many other poets inspire me so much at PU and I am blessed to be part of such a great writing community. Thank you, Sherry, for all you, Mary, Susan, Rosemary, Sumana and Magaly do to keep Poets United thriving.

Sherry: Thank you for your kind words, and for sharing your work and your thoughts here today, my friend. It has been such a pleasure.

Wasn't this a wonderful visit, my friends? Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!