which is dedicated to Wendy Pratt
I have never met Wendy in the real world: our relationship has only ever been virtual, and the longer this continues the more I wish circumstances were different, the geography between us easier to navigate. I first heard her read in a Zoom Room during COVID and her words altered me on a chemical level.
Wendy’s work is shaped by loss and grief, by the landscape that her family has inhabited for centuries, and by a determination to be unapologetically nothing but her most authentic self. Her poetry is tender, yet uncompromising and heartbreaking, as is her work in memoir. She taught me how not to fear my past.
I’ve never had the confidence to share this poem with her until now. I hope she likes it ❤
my Mind as a Poet
this is never going to work
I thought
the depths within unreachable
the face that ached the mind that drowned
to distil trauma neatly to a page
in spaces that hold truth more than words
too familiar terror etched with loss
I listened
and you taught me verse
speckled with a graceful calming gait
pointing me to fertile furrowed earth
where a story that had never been forgiven
found its space not now forbidden
with those women who still hold me safe
your mind
she tells me
as a poet
is the sum of every moment it endures
holds the power to move wisdom on
will be the better part of grief
can provide such quiet belief
if you will let it speak into the world
to believe all this and more I will extend
the tears a vital outlet
the face that can now smile
to be even a fraction of your story
in places and with other poets’ ears
you made me worthy and will keep me here
you taught me how to grow anew
Poem copyright S. Reeson © 2026
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