I envisioned the playlists that went along with this as companions to enhance the experience of the book – read a poem, listen to a song, etc. I’m not sure anyone used them for this purpose, and I’m not even sure that would have felt cohesive. But it sounded lovely in my head, and I sure had a great time curating these playlists.
I had a few narrative ideas when I arranged the book itself, and thematic imagery that I wanted to put in the forefront. But this book happened to me more than I happened to it, so it was surprising to find narrative threads and imagery that I hadn’t intended springing out of it. Listening to the full playlist of all seasons locates all of those things into an entirely new ecosystem that is equally surprising and interesting. I find this encouraging – that the things we create can take on a life of their own beyond what we intended. It makes me want to create more of them (which I’m doing, of course).
So, happy birthday to SOLACE, and here’s to many more book birthdays in future years!
(if you read the book, would you be so kind as to leave your honest Amazon or Goodreads review for it? I would be most grateful!)
It’s been a brisk, clear-blue-sky kind of day here in Indiana – the perfect start to autumn.
Of all seasons, autumn is by far my favorite. Though I love the changes – the reminder I need that every day is another day closer to Christ coming back and making everything right – autumn somehow captures my heart. It stirs me up. It’s bracing and invigorating, full of the weight of harvest and the impending weight of winter snapping at its heels.
It’s also the final season in my book SOLACE, and the one that somehow comes to terms with so many of the things the other seasons have wrestled with.
Autumn is a complex season. It signals the returning power of freezing temperatures, darkening days, and the death of living things, while celebrating the joy and abundance of harvest in a riot of gorgeous color. It is preparation – for sleep, for hibernation, for the long dark days of winter. But the preparation is exciting. It’s laying down root vegetables and winterizing pipes and raking leaves into fire pits and making cider.
I find autumn to be the natural capstone to the overarching narrative of SOLACE. The book begins in darkness and encounters it often, and it finds light and grace and goodness in unexpected places. But in the end, the cycle will return to the dark and cold of winter. I know this. I know this about my own life – that darkness will go away for a while, and then return. Perhaps it will be lighter this next time, perhaps darker. Perhaps it will be shorter, or longer. Either way, it’s as sure to me as the hope I hold that more darkness lies ahead.
But autumn is stacking firewood inside the mudroom door, so that throughout the winter we can keep the fire going. It’s carrying bushels of the harvest in so we can feast well. It’s cellaring joy and stockpiling grace and preserving patience for the long winter ahead.
And that, my friends, is an invigorating, hope-filled thing to be a part of. Death is coming, but it will not find us unprepared.
The songs contained in this final playlist for SOLACE, poem for poem, match autumn words with autumn tones. And because I just couldn’t choose between the two songs I wanted to use to end the book, I kept them both.
chicago in season iv / Pulaski at Night (Andrew Bird) familiars / Slack Jaw (Sylvan Esso) through fathoms / Autumnal (Teen Daze) blanks / Shatter (BAYNK, Martin Luke Brown) US-20 in october / Big Smoke (Tash Sultana) bleeding in, bleeding out / Humble Heart (Jess Ray) suspension lament / Maranatha (Jackie Hill Perry) ode to autumn / The Fall (Ben Shive) but now i see / Explaining Jesus (Jordy Searcy) bon-fire / Dream State (Son Lux) crowns / Virile (Moses Sumney) perhaps the sea / Dissolve Me (Alt-J) wanton / Just and Just As (Penny and Sparrow) and there will come a time / Be Kind To Yourself (Andrew Peterson) burn on steady / Lift a Sail (Yellowcard) bonus track / Into the Darkness (Drew Miller)
It’s the extravagant amount of light we get from dawn to dusk. It’s watermelon and fresh tomatoes and sweet corn. It’s no school and no responsibilities. It’s releasing my shockingly pale legs from their denim prison just long enough to feel an ounce of deserved shame. It’s fireflies and staying up late because the sun is, and vacations with family.
Of all the seasons, summer is brightest. Maybe for this reason, it feels like it yearns more than the other seasons.
Fall embraces darkness with a blaze of fiery light. Winter slumbers and waits. Spring bursts out in song. But summer never rests. Summer is always moving, always longing for something else, always busy about bringing that something else into fruition here. Summer sees something beautiful on the horizon and wants to be there more than it wants to be here, mowing the lawn or washing the windows or writing the next word. Summer gets to work to bring that something else about, but sometimes misses the point of the present.
I’ve noticed that the collection of poems in the summer section of SOLACE, and likewise, this playlist, have been shaped by these competing states of rest and restlessness.
So here it is, friends: the summer playlist for SOLACE. May we all find rest in the midst of our longings for something more.
(You can pick up a copy of the book at my shop or at Bookshop.org to read along, or check out the spring and winter playlists)
TRACKLIST:
chicago in season iii / Lake Shore Drive (Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah) julep / Julep (Punch Brothers) that postmodern crap. / Faith (Bon Iver) ode to the city / Velours (Anomalie) kyrie for july fourth / It’s Not Working (The Truth) (Propaganda) starling / Lose That Light (Folly and the Hunter) placeless / So Far, So Fast (The National) chasingheaven / Five (Sleeping at Last) golf-ball sized hail / Ice Cream (William Fitzsimmons) three moments: her head in the palm of my hand / Little Flower (Peter Bradley Adams) three moments: safe no more / Letter to the Editor (J Lind) three moments: birdless / The Road, the Rocks, and the Weeds (John Mark McMillan) leech / Transform (Daniel Caesar) call and response / Good News (Mac Miller) rainplay / Storms (Nick Box) quiet / I Am the Antichrist to You (Kishi Bashi)
It’s called SOLACE: poems for the broken season, and it focuses on light in the darkness, faith in doubt, and courage in the midst of fear. It includes four original art pieces (one for each season of the year) by my friend and incredible artist Josie Koznarek, who also designed the book itself. I’m extremely excited to have it out in the world and into your hands!
Like anything made by anyone, the poetry in this book didn’t come about in a vacuum. It came about within and because of multiple communities. This book exists because of a couple dozen people who believed in my work and supported me on Indiegogo, and because of hundreds more who spoke into my life and work when I needed it most.
But even beyond the communities that shaped this, every poem in this collection was influenced by a broad range of other art forms – stories, song, visual art, etc. Those of you who know me well know that I imbibe a massive (possibly unhealthy) amount of music when I’m writing. And also all the time.
Naturally, when I began thinking about how I to bring extra dimension to the experience of reading these poems, I knew I had to make a playlist.
