In this episode, Claire chats to poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer about her collection The Unfolding.
“I don’t know how she does it. In The Unfolding, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer opens her arms and heart and voice so wide, everything we experience comes inside to be held, to shine. The greatest grief, our unexpected nudges of memory, the way the world goes on despite everything—she finds a way to weave continuance, embodiment of love, which may change shape, but never disappears. ‘After I did not die the first minute, / I lived the next minute. / More truly, life lived me.’ These powerful poems are anthems of clarity and ultimate care.”
—Naomi Shihab Nye, Paterson Poetry Prize recipient and author of Everything Comes Next
“The Unfolding is the most powerful poetry collection I have ever read on grief and hope. With a language so deeply fluent in love, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer takes us into the deepest depths of what it means to be human—the beauty and the pain woven together seamlessly. I have long admired Rosemerry’s work. This is her most urgent collection yet. What a blessing to have read this masterpiece. What a privilege to walk in an era where Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is writing and filling our lives with her beautiful, essential words. The Unfolding is a collection I am recommending to every poetry lover and reader I know.”
—Nikita Gill, author of The Girl and the Goddess and These Are the Words: Fearless Verse to Find Your Voice
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has been writing and sharing a poem a day since 2006—a practice that especially nourished her after the death of her teenage son in 2021. Her daily poems can be found on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils, or a curated version (with optional prompts) on her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, available with the Ritual app. She is the author of Exploring Poetry of Presence II: Prompts to Deepen Your Writing Practice, and her poetry album, Dark Praise, explores “endarkenment,” available anywhere you listen to music.
She also co-hosts Emerging Form (a podcast on creative process), Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal), and Soul Writer’s Circle. Her poetry has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, on Carnegie Hall stage, and on river rocks she leaves around town. Her collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. Her most recent collections are All the Honey and The Unfolding.
In January 2024, she became the first poet laureate for Evermore, helping others through this platform to explore grief, bereavement, wonder, and love through the voice of poetry. Themes in her writings include parenting, gardening, the natural world, love, thriving and failure, grief, and daily life. She’s been an organic fruit grower, a newspaper and magazine editor, and a parent educator for Parents as Teachers. She earned her MA in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison.
Her three-word mantra: I’m still learning, and, if limited to one: Adjust.
Poets who particularly inspire her are Rainer Maria Rilke, Pablo Neruda, Naomi Shihab Nye, James Crews, and Gregory Orr.
You can find all of Rosemerry´s work on her website www.wordwoman.com
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