sometimes a particle

I am so excited to share this sweet collaboration with my magical sister and brilliant songwriter SJ Tucker. You know how the best songwriters are also poets? It’s like that. We have put together a journey from the depths of the river delta to the wind-swept, sun-washed expanses of the desert. Come join us!

Sunday, January 24th
1pm mountain time
onlineconcertthing.com
Tickets $10 and up, sliding scale

From Delta to Desert: S. J. Tucker & Kat Heatherington in Concert 2021-01-24 02:00 PM CST

The bones of this land deserve haunting songs and protean words to raise them. Join songwriter S. J. Tucker and poet Kat Heatherington for a shared online performance of words and music, poetry and songs rooted both in the soul of Kat’s desert home and S. J.’s green river valley. The two performers have worked together to produce concerts & events in community art spaces for more than a decade, but this will be their first opportunity to share an online show of Kat’s work & S. J.’s songs combined. Don’t miss it.

More about Kat Heatherington:
Kat lives at the intersection of art, poetry, organic gardening, queer dance parties, and strong-willed Taurus practicality. She is a queer, polyamorous, ecofeminist poet, artist, and pagan, who co-founded and lives in Sunflower River intentional community south of Albuquerque, in a river valley in the high desert. She has a passion for authenticity and emotional intelligence, which is reflected in her poetry. She has two books, The Bones of This Land and The Heart is a Muscle, both published by Swimming with Elephants Publications and available from the author, as well as on amazon.com, and at your local independent bookseller.

More about S.J. Tucker:
The voice of lore at the campfire. The sharp laughter of modern myth. A whimsical wisdom keeper whose performances run the gamut from silly to sacred and back again. Named “the voice of neotribal Paganism” by Witches & Pagans Magazine, S.J. (“Sooj”) Tucker is proud to contribute to the soundtrack of our worldwide conscious (r)evolution. With deft guitar, skillful hand drums, and a river siren’s compelling vocals, she wields an award-winning body of original music known for changing lives and healing wounded hearts, inspired by everything from beloved book characters to the turmoil of current events. Listen free & join the fan family at sjtucker.com

I have news I am delighted to be able to share with you!  My second book, The Heart is a Muscle, a full-length volume of poetry about farming, resiliency, the complexity of love and loss, and everything else that happens in a human heart, will be released by Swimming with Elephants Publications in March 2020. 

We don’t have the exact release date figured out yet, but when we do, you will hear about it here! And of course, like The Bones of This Land, it will be available on Amazon for ease of purchasing, especially  for non-local folks.  I’ll also do several featured readings throughout Spring and Summer this year, so be on the lookout for event announcements!  

And!  Kat d’Orazio will be drawing cover art for it!  If you’re not familiar with her work, you can check her out on instagram at @flowerhead_art – she is the fabulous tattoo artist & painter who did my “cosmic heart garden” back/arm tattoo.  

Swimming with Elephants Publications is run by Kat Crespin – so this book is being created by three people named Kat.  I am ridiculously pleased by this.  

I’ve had the good fortune to have several poems accepted for publication recently.

I have a piece in the winter issue of the lovely Manzano Mountain Review

The current issue of Anti Heroin Chic is on grief, and they graciously reprinted a poem from my book.

And I will have two poems and a photograph in the upcoming winter issue of Wend.

I’m publishing less on this website because most journals consider this a publication and only accept previously-unpublished work, so if you are interested in reading my work, please consider clicking through and reading the pieces published in each of these excellent journals!

Also, I am now on Patreon!  You can find me at https://www.patreon.com/yarrowkat. Patrons at the $1/poem tier receive two poems a month in their inboxes, and patrons at the $5 postcard-poem tier receive those poems as well as a postcard in the mail (featuring my photography) with a handwritten poem on it once a month.

Thank you for reading!

I am pleased to announce that i am coordinating a new erotic poetry reading series at Self Serve! The first one will be Sunday, July 21st, 3:30-5pm. The second will be in late January, and we hope to keep it up every July and January thereafter, as long as the juice lasts. I have a spectacular list of performers on board for July, and am now accepting submissions for performance in January. if you want to submit something and maybe perform, send me some poems at yarrow at sunflowerriver dot org!

and if you’d like to attend, mark your calendars! seating is limited to 30 people. tickets will go on sale next month, $10/each on the Self Serve website (linked above), and if we don’t sell out beforehand, they’ll also be available at the door.

see you there!

I will be performing at Sunday Chatter on May 19th. The event is at 10 a.m. at Las Puertas, and tickets nearly always sell out in advance, so if you want to come, get yours today!

https://www.chatterabq.org/product/may-19-2019/

I will have some new work, and some work from The Bones of This Land. This will be the second time I’ve performed at this beautiful venue, and I am really looking forward to it. I hope to see you there!

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve had some work accepted for publication recently. The newly formed Erotix Literary Journal of Somatics includes four of my pieces: “sluice,” “the silence shapes the rhythm,” “flame to ash,” and “when you fall.” Three of these were written at or in response to Body Trust workshops; the other is a love poem, but it fits. I’ll let you sort out which ones are which.

The editor, Zaedryn Meade, describes the work in the journal as, “works focused on describing transformative experiences and methods through erotic embodiment explorations.” This journal is print-only — for a more somatic reading experience. Buy yours today! https://www.amazon.com/Erotix-Literary-Somatics-Zaedryn-Meade/dp/0990762882/

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And, Sky Island Journal will be publishing my poem “permeable” in the fall issue! it comes out October 20th, and you can read it there then!
https://www.skyislandjournal.com/issues/#/issue6-fall2018/

The editors included in their acceptance letter this wonderful review of the poem:

“Permeable” is an intimate, yet wildly accessible, journey through the interior and exterior landscapes that are close to our hearts. The emotional and intellectual transport it provides is nothing short astonishing. Vivid imagery saturates our perfectly paced experience. Your craft is tight and elegant. Like all great art, “Permeable” is a gift that keeps giving; we discover more about it, and ourselves, with every reading. We are beyond excited to share it with the world.

I am so delighted and touched by this praise! I hope very much you will seek out copies of these works and enjoy them!

Gina Falcon and Swimming With Elephants Publications released this wonderful little trailer for my book:

check it out!

Out in Print published a review of my book! Here’s an excerpt:

Divided into two sections, “Everyone’s Father Dies of Something” and “Desert Solitaire,” the intent of this chapbook is clear from the outset. This will be about death, grief, and the aftermath of both. “This Aching Echo” lays out the specifics: you were fifteen when the doctors/cracked your father open like a broken heart,/declared him inoperable,/gave him six months, and stopped caring. The language is plain and all the more meaningful for it. What struck me more, however, were the life lessons learned in the reminiscences, the childhood scenes of “Reading Together,” for example–a beautiful piece that parallels the act of reading with her father as a child and then again at his deathbed. […] The Bones of This Land is a remarkable tribute, filled with longing, regret, and elegiacal beauty.

You can read the full review here.

You can purchase your copy directly from the author at yarrow@sunflowerriver.org, from the UNM Bookstore if you are in Albuquerque, or online at amazon.com (print and Kindle editions available!)