Line / Break | Season 4 with Nikki Wallschlaeger

Interview Transcript

Ryo Yamaguchi (00:00):
Hey everybody. I’m Ryo Yamaguchi, the publicist at Copper Canyon Press, and you are tuning into season four of our interview series, Line Break, which goes off the page and into the poems and minds of our beloved poets. We’ve had so much fun over these seasons, hearing poems, talking about writing books, life. It’s been one of the favorite things we do at the press. So friends, for season four, a format change. For this season, we are doing some close reads. Each episode will focus on either a single poem or a single topic wandering away and returning and wandering away again along all the little paths we simply can’t resist. The episodes will probably be a little tighter, a little shorter. We can’t say for sure. Thanks for joining us.

(00:56):
Nikki Wallschlaeger is a real human being. Maybe that’s obvious, but it’s a starting point for me because her poems in the forthcoming Hold Your Own and in all of her books, paint one of the most detailed portraits of the complex, shifting combinations of qualities and energies that make it individual who they are. There is the fact of her intersectionalities being black woman, a mother, living in the upper Midwest, and also the fact of the middleness of her life, having this specific history, a specific set of hopes and frustrations, at once vulnerable and full of power.

(01:38):
These poems are so recognizable to me precisely because they are idiosyncratic. One can see the human alongside the humanness in what are often acutely focused subjects, encounters, or assessments that are not only poignant microcosms of great questions, but enactments of a living mind working through them. One of my favorites is a poem called, I Could Really Go For a Deep Hug, which begins in a small encounter and with tremendous momentum builds toward something much bigger. I’m so happy to be with Nikki today to talk about this poem. Nikki, thank you so much for being here.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (02:17):
Hello, everyone. Thank you for that wonderful introduction.

Ryo Yamaguchi (02:21):
Yeah, I love this book so much, and I think some of it is because of, well, everything I just described. I feel like I recognize myself and get to know you at the same time, and I think it’s really wonderful. I mean, there’s a friendship to the poems already, if I don’t mind saying that word, but how are you feeling about with the book coming in the spring and things?

Nikki Wallschlaeger (02:40):
Oh, I’m really delighted that it’s going to be coming out in the spring, because spring, especially late May, is one of my favorite times of the year where everywhere spring is just full bloom and active and energetic, and there’s no going back in late May in Wisconsin, so yeah, it’s perfect.

Ryo Yamaguchi (03:05):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I’m relatively familiar. Maybe could you describe for us where you live a little bit? I think it’s actually a really special part of the country.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (03:12):
It is. Well, I live in the southwest region of Wisconsin, an area called the Driftless, and it’s called the Driftless because it’s unglaciated. So millions of years ago when there was these glaciers coming through North America, or as we know as North America, this area, they didn’t come here. They didn’t flatten everything like the rest of the States. So surrounded… I’m surrounded by all these small hills that are millions and millions of years old, and it’s just very special, and it feels warm and ancient.

Ryo Yamaguchi (04:00):
Yeah, yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (04:01):
It’s lovely.

Ryo Yamaguchi (04:03):
Literally. Yeah. I’ve loved it there, and I think I mentioned I lived in Chicago for a long time and we’d spent… So it was a refuge to go to the Driftless for me, towns like Viroqua and stuff, central areas. I love that ancient feeling, and also it’s such a good, as a cultural community or something like I could, like a harvest festival and things like that.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (04:28):
The organic farming is very value stuff, so it’s also a different kind of community involved farming, going alongside with food justice and environmental justice too.

Ryo Yamaguchi (04:42):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s so fantastic. Is most of your writing practice in that location? Do you feel rooted to it in your poems? Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (04:55):
Oh, yes. Yeah, I’m rooted here.

Ryo Yamaguchi (04:56):
Totally. Totally. It was one my main questions, reading through the poems is trying to picture you and your practice. I mean, I had a basic question of just you describing what your writing practice is if in the mornings or the evenings or whenever you can, that kind of stuff, but yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (05:08):
Well, actually, the cover of Hold Your Own is taken from my backyard.

Ryo Yamaguchi (05:14):
Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (05:16):
Yeah, that’s my clothesline.

Ryo Yamaguchi (05:19):
Fantastic.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (05:24):
Yeah. I mean, I can write anywhere, but it definitely changes with the environment. My writing is… I am already working on the next book, so that one is going to be more involved with deeper exploration of the roots in this area because by then I’ll have lived here long enough to feel that I have something more to say.

Ryo Yamaguchi (05:54):
Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (05:56):
This whole book, Hold Your Own, was written while I was living out here. So it’s just the beginning of my rooting out here because prior to that, I lived in Milwaukee.

Ryo Yamaguchi (06:09):
Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (06:10):
So, yeah.

Ryo Yamaguchi (06:11):
Yeah, absolutely. I know, and I think it’s big, I mean, it’s a big change to go from the city to rural life and things, but I also think of this book as rooted in the world. I mean, it’s dealing so directly with so many social issues, and so I’ve also had this sort of curiosity about, I think it’s, I mean, I’m very familiar with all of your books, and I see this as part of your larger uber, but I’m curious if you have a way that you distinguish this book from the others you’ve written and the next one that you’re working on, or how you feel it fits. I don’t know if you would describe it that way or not, but, yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (06:46):
Oh, yeah. This one here… Well, I was married for 17 years, and I’m been divorced for two years, so Hold Your Own is pretty. It’s about holding my own, being on my own and finding myself again, and developing a life that I am happy with and working through the things that I wasn’t happy with and things like that, so this is a very special book. It’s a turning point for me in a personal level.

Ryo Yamaguchi (07:23):
Yeah, absolutely. I feel it there, and I think it is the directness of the speaker and like I was trying to get at in the introduction of I really feel the poet or the speaker working through issues, trying… There’s just the flow of, I guess, stream of consciousness, I guess, maybe is a word we’ve used or something like that. I don’t know if you would describe it that way, but I see it very much. I mean, it depends on the poem.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (07:46):
Inner dialogue.

Ryo Yamaguchi (07:48):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Total inner dialogue. Well, maybe instead of grasping at straws, maybe we should hear a poem if you’d be up for it-

Nikki Wallschlaeger (07:56):
I would love to.

Ryo Yamaguchi (07:58):
Yeah. I do love this poem. I Could Really Go For a Deep Hug. It’s such a simple title, but I think it gets so complex right away. Anyway, whatever. I would love to hear it, if you’d be up for reading it. Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (08:09):
Right. I Could Really Go For a Deep Hug. “Free Hugs” screamed a white man at the Hippie Fest, but I wouldn’t hug him, an unknown, A man old enough to be my father. It was the first time I saw hugging as a kind of currency among the counter-cultural. It was cute, I guess. I hugged women I’ll never see again, didn’t even know their names. I saw women hugging that man. He seemed okay. Everyone knew him, but you never know. He believed in those hugs he was giving. He could heal the world, but I didn’t trust him. His hugs were fishing for something else. Trust your intuition, Nikki, which I did that time, and smiled, walked by, hugged women instead, when they asked, I’ll hug my sisters. We share histories. It was comforting, resting for a minute from bad men, probably ourselves, the powers that permeate. There is no reason to advertise these hugs were free, no reason at all.

(09:26):
Currency was out of balance. We are beyond women holding beyond the value of labor, but the guy kept screaming from his position, every day, “Free hugs, free hugs,” his wide eyes. He was so convinced he had what it takes, selling it, declaring himself free. Come on, people. Now, I got these free hugs, human contact at no cost, but something was not right. When they tell you we’re lucky to live in the land of the free to be proud, the hugs he was giving out costs someone something somewhere, probably a woman reacted out on her body what he wasn’t capable of giving. Now, he was free of her and his women troubles. He was to purveyor of free hugs. Meanwhile, women, total strangers hug each other everywhere, waiting in line to use the bathroom, trying to put our lives back in the aftermath, a co-worker suddenly reaching over to hug you, letting you know she’s here with you in male-dominated spaces.

(10:47):
I hug you back and mean it, except at first it might be a shy hug, half hug, but when my body hurts, thieving ache, low-down blue ache, fellow man. I mean, no, dude. I don’t want your hugs. Screaming enterprises of touching women benevolently, I’m looking for real friends, kinfolk, women who understand to share a deep ache of another day of terror perpetuated by the US government. I Could Really Go for a Deep Hug by women and femmes, the country’s number one targets. We’re not supposed to ask for what we need, here I am asking for deep hugs. If someone is interested in hugging, I’ll hug back with what I can hold, which doesn’t feel like much to me at the moment. Maybe it’ll be enough for who I’m hugging. Maybe I need reminding I can survive. We should survive strengthening ourselves, sweetly.

Ryo Yamaguchi (12:01):
Yeah, I do. I love it. I mean, there’s so much happening in this poem, and I do think it’s like, well, the title that Hold your Own. I mean, that some of it is that I think where it’s like, oh, and it’s the idea of holding, but it’s so sophisticated. The currency of affection that you’re talking about, and then the building of community with women, and then also the structural things that we were talking about. I love this self address in this of the poet talking herself through it of the scenario, and then trying to read also a situation that, to reading someone’s intent and stuff. That’s such a sophisticated thing to me in a social setting, and with all of that happening, all the plates spinning. I’ve also just really curious if, well, I know about the origin of the poem a little bit. I’m sort of curious what festival, if it’s real, if the whole story’s real to you-

Nikki Wallschlaeger (13:01):
Yeah, it’s real. This was actually a Rainbow Gathering I went to when I was 19. That was like 20 years ago.

Ryo Yamaguchi (13:10):
That’s so wild. I’ve been to a couple of Rainbow Gatherings myself, actually. There’s some regional ones in particular, but there is-

Nikki Wallschlaeger (13:16):
Yeah. It was in Utah at the top of this, the highest mountain peak that you could have access to in Utah.

Ryo Yamaguchi (13:26):
Oh, wild. Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (13:27):
Yeah. There was like 30,000 people there, and it was the first and only one I’ve been to. I mean, I had a lot of fun. I just wandered around and just enjoyed what was going on, and it was a great experience to see that people can figure out how to live on their own without money and that it’s possible even if it is only temporary.

Ryo Yamaguchi (13:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, I love the whole culture oriented around the kitchens and, of course, so many creative and spiritual activities going on. Yeah. That’s really what. Well, I guess that provides more context because there’s also capitalism is a subtext to this whole poem that this idea of the currency of affection, and then when you get to the idea of an oppressive government that’s later in the poem and thinking about that as all capitalist forces and things too, it’s really strange. Did this kind of critique of the free hug idea or the awkwardness or the suspicion around motivations of that, was that something that occurred to you immediately in that encounter, or was this something that you worked through in the poem?

Nikki Wallschlaeger (14:47):
Both. I just found myself thinking back to that man and how suspicious I felt of him and what he was doing, and it took me a long time to put it together in this poem, but at the time, I guess, it just felt odd to advertise feeling contact in a place where capitalism is not eradicated completely. I mean, it’s still there in other ways, so I guess, I was also looking at that too.

Ryo Yamaguchi (15:24):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny, and I think that’s part of it, and I want to relate this to other social commentary, critique poems that are in Hold your own, because realizing that this is in an intentional community, we might call it or something, an alternative space, but also showing how pervasive still some of these structures are, even within something that tries so hard to be separate and different. I’m thinking of a visual I have from being at a Rainbow Gathering once too, where it was in the kind of barter market, and this guy had this big chunk of chocolate, and he was just shaving off pieces of chocolate for whatever. I remember trying to quantify, what is this sliver of chocolate? Do I trade a quesadilla for it or something? You’re still in a weird economy.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (16:21):
Yes, exactly. I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. The bartering area was, there’s weird energy there. There’s people that have these beautiful things like crystals and stuff, and nothing could please them.

Ryo Yamaguchi (16:34):
Yeah, to let go of that to do a trade or to do a, yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (16:39):
Yeah. Just it could see what was making people upset, and it was just affecting this vibe of generosity.

Ryo Yamaguchi (16:50):
Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (16:50):
Yeah.

Ryo Yamaguchi (16:52):
Yeah, For sure. How long did it take for you to write this book, and were these occasional poems from the practice of writing every day and things, or did you feel yourself, I mean, I know you were going through a lot of life changes and your family is changing and stuff, and just curious how much these poems lived within that, or if they were written in a really condensed period of time over just a few weeks or months or something, but yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (17:16):
Over a few years.

Ryo Yamaguchi (17:18):
Yeah. Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (17:20):
I mean, I like to think of my books as documentation of a period of my life that I’m going through. Not necessarily, not necessarily journals, but-

Ryo Yamaguchi (17:38):
Yeah, yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (17:40):
They follow my life. My poems come with me. Wherever I’m at in my life are going to be where the book is going to start to shape itself.

Ryo Yamaguchi (17:50):
And the poems are there.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (17:51):
Yeah.

Ryo Yamaguchi (17:53):
No, that’s wonderful, and I think that’s maybe one of the main reasons I’m so drawn to poetry is because it doesn’t need to… I mean, there’s a tradition and a trend of project books that are around certain things or design certain ways, but I love what I think of as quotidian poems, the poems that feel that they’re written every day and are interacting with the ups and downs and nuances of life.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (18:20):
Yeah.

Ryo Yamaguchi (18:20):
Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (18:21):
I mean, I’m the project.

Ryo Yamaguchi (18:23):
Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (18:25):
I’m the subject.

Ryo Yamaguchi (18:27):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That goes back to the old, I don’t know, it’s like a Sylvia Plath thing or something, I think. So, I also think of the Hug Poem as kind of a manifesto for women, and I don’t know I if you would describe it that way or not, but I’m curious if you feel that the poems or this poem in particular is it for women in this case?

Nikki Wallschlaeger (18:54):
So another thing that I was thinking of when I wrote this poem was how many times I’ve been at shows or concerts or whatever, and women go to the bathroom and we’re all kind of tipsy or whatever, and just the spontaneity of conversation and just end up hugging each other. Then you never see them again. Women do that a lot, so that was also something that I was thinking about that went to this poem. The spontaneity of whether it’s named as solidarity or not, it’s still there. We recognize each other in those moments, and I just want to emphasize too, the spontaneity of it, a spontaneity of warmth as opposed to a man holding a sign that says “Free hugs” and screaming about free hugs all day. That’s kind of an interesting juxtaposition, right?

Ryo Yamaguchi (19:56):
No, it is. It is. And I mean, I think it gets at, well, there’s a hypocrisy, I guess to it, the idea of free hugs that I’m not going to charge you anything for this, but the context is coming back to capitalism. The context is still like this market, he’s still advertising.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (20:15):
Right. Yes. He’s still advertising. Right, right.

Ryo Yamaguchi (20:17):
No, and then versus what you’re talking… Versus the spontaneity in the bathroom line where it’s like, no, but it’s there because, and so there’s the need for that hug, the need for that affection is more prevalent, it’s more powerful, and it is the true alternative, I think, to what’s otherwise being screamed as an alternative, but not, I don’t know. It’s all very apparent to me.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (20:38):
I mean, to be fair, I don’t know the guy, maybe he was just lonely and he was just, his awkward contribution to the Rainbow Gathering vibe, but these are just my thoughts, and I hope wherever he is, guess what he needs, because like many people, he is probably also starved for touch and affection and love-

Ryo Yamaguchi (21:09):
Yeah, yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (21:11):
But that’s just my reading of it, of the practice of how he was asking for it, not necessarily what I think about this character of a man that I don’t even know. So it’s more about the practice, and I’ve this other… I’ve seen people do that too, advertising for free hugs elsewhere at street festivals and stuff, and I always found it curious.

Ryo Yamaguchi (21:39):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, and I think the poem is so generous to this person also, and that it is about the practice and I think-

Nikki Wallschlaeger (21:47):
I know that comes through.

Ryo Yamaguchi (21:48):
No, it does. It does. I don’t think it’s mean in any way. I think it follows that person into the mysteries of what their intention are is, and that he’s also someone who’s caught up in this odd system or this odd structure that we can’t escape or something. Back to the Hernando capitalism thing. It was similar to me too because, I mean, I’ve also being at concerts, another guy, I mean, I’ve seen this person, I’ve seen this whole thing take place too, the free hug thing, and some of it’s, maybe it’s like it’s a call for interaction. It’s wanting to interact with a stranger, and I respect that, but… so there’s a lot of authentic ways to do it too, I suppose.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (22:34):
Yeah.

Ryo Yamaguchi (22:35):
I’m curious if your experience in giving readings or talking with people about poetry, I mean, if you’ve ever had a surprising encounter with someone after a reading or around poetry, what the reception is like, because I do think of your work often as really interacting with people where they are, and yeah. I’m curious if you’ve ever had either surprising or even just nice interactions with folks after reading or after sharing poems with people.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (23:07):
The friend of mine that hugs me at my readings, he recently read Water Baby the last reading a couple weeks ago.

Ryo Yamaguchi (23:14):
Your last book? Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (23:15):
Yeah. He read Water Baby, and it says it was beautiful and disturbing, and I thanked him because-

Ryo Yamaguchi (23:24):
Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (23:24):
And I told him like, “Well, yeah, I mean, I’m not really one to ignore disturbing things in life,” so I took that as a compliment.

Ryo Yamaguchi (23:35):
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely yeah. Maybe I hear that it’s beautifully disturbing or something. Like I said, that the beauty is also in truth and recognizing, recognition.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (23:48):
Oh, I did have somebody call my poems terrifying.

Ryo Yamaguchi (23:53):
Yeah. How did that feel? Did that feel different than disturbing. Yeah. Did you feel that not as a compliment?

Nikki Wallschlaeger (24:05):
I mean, I think they’re talking about themselves more about me and brought something out in them that they’re terrified of.

Ryo Yamaguchi (24:14):
Yeah. Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (24:18):
You’re on your own with those people.

Ryo Yamaguchi (24:19):
Yeah, for sure.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (24:22):
I’m not responsible for that, but I was amused. I’m amused by that. My poems aren’t terrifying. That’s amusing to me.

Ryo Yamaguchi (24:32):
Yeah. It’s a complicated word. I don’t want to induce terror, but I do like the idea that a poem can make someone come face to face with something that they’re unwilling to come face to face within themselves or something. I mean, that’s good for all of us, right?

Nikki Wallschlaeger (24:46):
Or within society or the world and stuff.

Ryo Yamaguchi (24:51):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (24:52):
And also, people do like to be scared sometimes, right? I mean, otherwise there wouldn’t be a horror movie industry.

Ryo Yamaguchi (25:01):
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I was going to say too, I mean, I don’t know, sometimes I’ll hear stories of odd interactions from a reading or something, and some of that is, I feel like, well, if you’re going to a poetry reading, you have to be relatively primed for any matter, but emotional things are going to come to you. I mean, it’s a poetry reading. That’s the whole point, right?

Nikki Wallschlaeger (25:25):
Yeah. But I know there’s many people out there who think that poetry is going to be safe and fairly innocuous. Yeah.

Ryo Yamaguchi (25:39):
Yeah.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (25:40):
Yeah.

Ryo Yamaguchi (25:40):
I suppose you’re right. Yeah. Yeah. This brings me to another question I’ve had that, again, a little bit about your practice, but thinking about poetry as, I don’t know, do you feel rooted in its traditions? How much do you push? How much do you think that poetry, how much do you want poetry or your own poems to be innovating or to be pushing new terrain and boundaries, or how much do you feel related to its traditions and what it’s always done for people and things, or somewhere in the middle? I’m sure you’re straddling both things, but-

Nikki Wallschlaeger (26:21):
I mean, I have done this Cross Space, my second book is All Sonnets, and then my first book Cross Space is all, mostly is all pros poems about different colored houses. Those two books were, at the time when I had this attitude about titles and I was really focused on the whole book being a book, being really together. So they’re all related with their titles like that. But I guess with the past two books and the one I’m writing now, I’ve broken out of that and I’ve gotten comfortable with titles. So I guess where I’m at now is just to be able to let the poems take whatever form they need to take and still be a part of the community of the book.

Ryo Yamaguchi (27:18):
Yeah, that’s great. I was thinking, I’m conscious of, we’re running up here on time. I think we said the time really slipped away from us. I wouldn’t mind hearing the poem again, if you’d be up for it, or if there’s something else you’d want to read too from the book. I mean, whatever you’d like to do.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (27:34):
Okay. I’ll read another one and then I’ll finish again with, I’ll read it. I Could Really Go For a Deep Hug.

Ryo Yamaguchi (27:40):
Cool. Awesome. Okay.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (27:41):
God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money, after Quincy Jones.

(27:48):
God slams the door on a lot of folks these days. The Billionaires, he slammed the door so hard the door broke off its hinges. Dearest daughters, wealthy men across the board with their women think they invented beauty. If you go downtown lesser demons scramble on their hind legs for any piece luminous with delusions of wealth. God realizes this. But like I said, God is still human and has his idiosyncrasies. Instead of finally doing something about it he grabs his jacket, slams the door, and takes a cab to his favorite tavern. Outmatched in cleverness and technology, He hasn’t figured out how to speak to his children since they left the house. They petition him when he’s supposed to be working, each demanding their own empires, and since God hates feeling guilty, he pays some of them off. Believe me, my broke ass has called his office more than once. Nearly impossible to get an appointment, which is just as well. For generations women have been surviving with God and we’ll keep surviving without God. And then I Could Really Go For a Deep Hug.

(29:11):
“Free hugs,” screamed a white man at the hippie fest, but I wouldn’t hug him, an unknown, a man old enough to be my father. It was the first time I saw hugging as a kind of currency among the counter-cultural. It was cute, I guess. I hug a woman I’ll never see again. Didn’t even know their names. I saw women hugging that man. He seemed okay. Everyone knew him, but you never know. He believed in those hugs He was giving. He could heal the world, but I didn’t trust him. His hugs are fishing for something else. Trust your intuition, Nikki, which I did that time and smiled, walked by, hugged women instead, when they asked, I’ll hug my sisters. We share histories. It was comforting, resting for a minute from bad men, probably ourselves, the powers that permeate. There was no reason to advertise these hugs were free.

(30:18):
No reason at all. Currency was out of bounds. We are beyond, women holding beyond the value of labor. But the guy kept screaming from his position every day, “Free hugs, free hugs” his wide eyes. He was so convinced he had what it takes, selling it, declaring himself free. Come on people. Now I got these free hugs, human contact at no cost, but something was not right. When they tell you we’re lucky to live in the land of the free to be proud, the hugs he was giving out cost someone something somewhere, probably a woman acted out on her body what he wasn’t capable of giving. Now, he was free of her in his women troubles. He was purveyor of free hugs, Inc. Meanwhile, women, total strangers, hug each other everywhere, waiting in line to use the bathroom, trying to put our lives back in the aftermath.

(31:27):
A coworker suddenly reaching over to hug you, letting you know she’s here with you in male dominated spaces. I hug you back and mean it. Except at first it might be a shy hug, half hug, but when my body hurts, thieving ache, low down, blue ache, fellow man, I mean, no, dude, I don’t want your hugs. Screaming enterprises of touching women, benevolently. I’m looking for real friends, kinfolk, women who understand that share a deep ache of another day of terror perpetuated by the US government. I Could Really Go For a deep hug by women and femmes, the country’s number one targets. We’re not supposed to ask for what we need, here I am asking for deep hugs. If someone is interested in hugging, I’ll hug back with what I can hold. It doesn’t feel like much to me at the moment. Maybe it’ll be enough for you for who I’m hugging. Maybe I need something reminding I can survive. We should survive strengthening ourselves sweetly. Thank you.

Ryo Yamaguchi (32:56):
Yeah, no, I just love the poem so much. It’s the sweetly at the end too. This turn, I think from all this energy, and then it just has this little flip at the end that is, I don’t know. I find it really comforting-

Nikki Wallschlaeger (33:12):
Thank you.

Ryo Yamaguchi (33:13):
Even as it is so engaged and yeah, I don’t know. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. It’s really great to hear both. I love that. And then the first poem you read too was really wonderful. I remember that. Thank you so much again, Nikki, for being here. I just love that poem so much. And I don’t know, it was just nice to have this ranging, wandering conversation about your practice and what the poems do, what they mean. I don’t know. Yeah. I’m just grateful for you, so thank you.

Nikki Wallschlaeger (33:42):
Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is wonderful.

Ryo Yamaguchi (33:45):
Yeah, it’s really great. Well, and I wish you well going into the new year, whether it’s with resolutions or at least maybe every resolution should be to just write another poem, right? Or something like that. I definitely have that one. So we’ll see where we get. But this is a great way to close out the year chatting with you about this. Thank you again and thank you all out there for joining us. This is season four. I think we’re coming pretty close here to wrap on the season, and I just appreciate all of you joining us for all of these conversations, and we hope to see you next time. Thanks.

 

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