edited by Sean Enfield
There are precious few people as genuine and as generous as our featured poet this week. Maureen Leak is a talented poet, playwright, artist, cook, and all-around-creative, and we’re lucky to have her as a collaborator here at Spiderweb Salon. Today, we are bringing you her poem in celebration of this collective of wonderful, creative weirdos. If you love this as much as we do, you may want to check out our Coast to Coast showcase this weekend at Wine2, where she’ll be performing a piece she wrote about unity with local artists Kennedy Kirby and Alex Paul. We’re pretty excited for this one.
This poem was written for the airwaves and earn a place of honor as one of the very first in a series of poetry to be recorded by Spiderweb Salon in co-founder Conor Wallace’s cozy apartment among fellow poets. Originally broadcast on Denton’s community radio station, 92.9 KUZU, on February 5th as a part of Topher S.J.’s original programming on Brains of Paradise, “Ode to the Spiderweb” is now available online for listening, loving, and sharing.
Listen along as you read Maureen's heartfelt words, maybe let them lead you on a journey to write some poetry of your own. In keeping with the web she weaves in the poem below, Maureen’s writing advice will have you digging deep to connect to a greater creative consciousness. She writes, “If you cannot go into the deep, dark, lonely places and pull out your art, you will miss the single thread that connects us all to a larger creative piece.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Ode to the Spiderweb
Where we go
There we are
and
Denton, we are here!
So, let's have a party!
The invitation should read...
It's time!
Do what you have to do to be
present!
Leave your requiems and dirges
for another time.
Let what was thought dead, Arise!
Let what is dying, Be buried!
We are not the spider to kill...
Not the fly to be eaten...
Step outside of chaos
and shout back into it;
Be Free!
Watch closely as our sound vibrates into the chaotic.
See as our eyes are opened to a single thread spun.
Connecting and drawing a pattern of free.
We move as a single thread
in a slow, rhythmic, synchronized dance.
We are not stuck here together.
We are together
becoming
patterns
of
free
for a
world
to
move
Through.
Maureen Leak is a woman that has lived at least ten different lives and none of them look familiar to each other. So here she is in another phase trying to pull some of the strengths from the past lives lived. She’s waiting for a glimpse of the fullness of her!
If you’d like your work to be featured by Spiderweb Salon, send us your work through our submissions page. We’d love to have you as a friend.
Photo by Mateo Aaron Granados, courtesy of The Dentonite