Pure Poetry

East Coast Dates Announced + Daddy Issues

Here’s a miracle that happened in the middle of a shitstorm.

First, ya gotta know that I deeply love both of my parents. They did radically well with what they were given and I am very grateful for how they raised me. They’re also human. Which means they’re flawed and they screwed up a bunch. And that is as much as I’m gonna sugarcoat what I tell you next—

They fight.

They fight a lot.

They always have.

They likely always will.

So when I was in Boise a few weeks ago, visiting my dad in a rehabilitation center where he was recovering after surgery on a broken leg, I was not surprised when the nurse outside my dad’s room said to me,

“Um. They are having a serious discussion. You might not wanna go in there.”

With zero hesitation, I responded,

“They’re my parents. I’m used to it,”

She chuckled as I turned the door handle.

It’s true. I AM used to it. But this was a special day. The tension in the room was as layered and thick as the cake I’m fantasizing about eating right now. There was no not touching it. It was the air we were breathing. I had my daughters with me. Myra was flinching.

Trying very hard to make us comfortable, my parents ceased their argument as soon as we walked through the door. But the conversation between us never recovered a sense of normalcy. Our visit was brief. We had to get on the road back to Utah anyway.

However this one, glimmering thing did happen while we were there.

My dad looked me up and down and told me I should eat more.

That wasn’t the glimmering thing.

Raymond Carver

Right AFTER that he looked in my watery brown eyes with total sincerity and told me how much he hoped I as happy.

He told me that I was so good with words.

He told me that I should keep making poetry.

Surprised. Moved - I looked right back into his eyes -pale, tired watery blue, and said,

“Wow Dad. THANK YOU. Thank you so much. That means a lot.”

It did

You all—

My father has never complimented my work. My father doesn’t read much. I’m convinced he has an undiagnosed learning disability of some kind. He didn’t get the same chances or opportunities I did. He wasn’t able to graduate high school. Anything academic—anything to do with reading, anything to do with the arts for that matter—has always been not only challenging but alienating for him.

The only creative feedback I have heard from him before is upset and hurt over how he has been portrayed by me. And while my intention has only ever been to tell the truth, however harsh it may be while holding it compassionately —-

I get it.

ee Cummings

All of which is why a little piece of gravel in my heart dissolved itself into honey when my dad said what he did.

I’ve long joked about my daddy wounds, but if I had to sum it up simply, my wound is rooted (i.e. gapes bottomlessly) in my father’s inability to see me. (Which I would have denied up and down previously. Since I went out in the world and learned to see myself and made a living out of seeing others for crying out loud. But alas, a few failed relationships humbled me and showed me that—oh, yeah…there’s still a big cussing ouch and need there…dammit).

I put boundaries in place and stopped sharing my heart with my father long ago. I didn’t even know he knew I loved writing. Let alone that I made poetry.

I say ‘made poetry’ because that’s the way I’ve always felt about my photography.

My photographs are visual poems. Sometimes, they are paintings too. But poems were my first love. As a young, married new mom, I researched MFA creative writing programs for years. Dreaming. Fantasizing. Scheming. I was intimidated by how hard it seemed to get accepted into a program. And then one day, sitting in front of a computer screen looking at one such competitive program for the umpteenth time, I heard it clear as day, “This isn’t the right path for you or your family right now.”

I became a photographer instead. A different kind of hard. A different kind of poem. I don’t feel regret. But there’s always a distinct nostalgic pleasure in letting one’s imagination go wondering down the road you chose not to travel….

I’ve been lucky in my career to have platforms where words matter as much as the images. To stitch my version of poetry into not just images and light and people’s faces—your faces—-but also into captions and substacks and email messages to clients. I still write formal poems. I still hope to publish them.

April just happens to be National Poetry Month.

I just happen to be writing a poem every day.

I just happen to be announcing a Spring Glory Sale on Second Sight Sessions. (Save $400 if you book now through May.)

I just happen to be saying thank you for a glimmering moment of sight from my father that bloomed up from mud like an unexpected flower.

I just happen to be telling you that I’m coming out East this July for sure, for sure. I’ve got the official dates and everything. July And you just may wanna book a Second Sight Session.

Some of you may be confused.

Like, wait, Yan, aren’t you tryna get a job? Has Chani called? Did Myra get the part? In this economy? The answers, in order, are: yes, no, no, why do you think I’m doin’ a Spring Glory Sale and declaring it poetry? We are Chumbawumba-ing over here. We are embracing poetry as the liminal answer to all ills. We are asking you to embrace with us.

I’ve left you some of my favorite poems as presents in this newsletter. The written kind, not the photo variety.

Leave me a poem back if you love me.

(No pressure.)

Yan

*most poems grabbed from my favorite instagram account

Poetry is not a luxury

*