Act IV of Twelve Acts of Shelter | Thank you to the poets and musicians who shared their work so generously. & Thank you to everyone who came to witness, listen, and hold the room with such care. Was carried somewhere beyond language.
Link in bio for the next event 💌
thinking always about movement. recently its Blondell Cummings, moving pictures & the kitchen. i reach towards the window, you go for my throat, i go for the mound of flesh above your heart
it's the little things. the small things. grateful for memory. for all the houses built so far. for the people on the journey with me. sometimes it's like if u don't post it then it didn't happen but the tree predates your existence. it will come when it comes. none of us are machine. just trying 2 stay alive 🖤
Tues 28 April 💌 7:30pm | where poetry and music gather around small constellations of light, brief shelters, memory, beautiful people. Come to listen! to pay attention! to write! Tickets in bio xx
Please join me on 5th of May at @rosesofelagabalus for Bodies of Power — a conversation centered in Audre Lorde’s 1978 essay, The Uses of The Erotic. The brilliant @lucykumaramoore , @phoenixyemoja , and @aaronybailey and I will explore what the erotic means today through Audre’s lens, and where they’re finding pleasurable moments in a time of disconnection. Tickets available at the link in my bio <3 see you there
graphics: @kklembasilisa
polaroids: @aaronybailey
somewhere between lavender blue and violet blue. the woods are made of carpet. the gate is silver. my dreams are tricuspid but all i have is holy ghost & spirit. it would be troublesome to evade all mention of God but i have no desire to be good or prostrate. april is wicked, meaning cruel, meaning The Waste Land haunts me, meaning memory unfurnished by time, not enough distance between death and life, but the green spreads anyway. And I love the birds and can see my anger towards the trees was the grief, misplaced. If I wasn't so afraid of tetanus I'd run barefoot down that sloping hill and twice over. My father loved to walk.
7:30pm | Tuesday 28 April | Act IV of Twelve Acts of Shelter 💌 where poetry and music gather around small constellations of light, brief shelters, memory.
readers to be shared next week🌷 Tickets in bio xx
i refute|refuse the ceiling, present instead a tapestry, a veil, sheer, and sporadic needle-thin holes to let the light in. what's a roof if not temporary, i mean one day the water does and will in fact get in. i mean the skin is porous, that grief is a bottomless bucket and it rains and rains and i'm worried that soon the soil will be waterlogged and what will float to the surface is rot. i mean i love you. and worry that there isn't enough in me to choose the mountain. thought the uphill was as high as it could get the days after the loss, but it's true what they say, how grief billows, expands, engulfs every thought of prosperity, and how you have to grow around it and wade through it, the thick of it, the dark, the shadow, fog, slog, a shark tooth wedged in your funny bone, and always the thought of no longer hearing your voice. with you here there would be no need for mourning, for turning over the memories. i miss you so loudly it's silent. and still, sometimes i dream my tongue is fire, and i'm hurling the rage at you, always fragile and smiling. all this anger at what i cannot have, not enough space to tend to what i do. i'm trying. but can only find grace in delusion, the transformation to small animal, to not need beyond what the earth provides and no surprise at the order of things. this cannot be real. and this is the power of play-pretend. the beauty of language. you are in the trees, you are resting your head on clouds as soft as silk. i'm trying to get back to you. to hear you. it's icarus like. to refute what is known and to say instead the body is a fortress. you don't need to see what you believe to know it's there. let the light in. hope is sacred. and my fingers are numb from digging in the dirt. i hope the flowers reach the sun. that icarus saw something beautiful before he fell, that he touched the sun. and it's something like the red thread in la chimera and how what you don't let go off will bury you. let the light in. in truth im afraid
Act III of Twelve Acts of Shelter (31 March 2026) 🌷 such a beautiful & heart-warming night of expression. a pouring of light and one I’m still carrying with me! pls forgive the lateness of this post, spring has been asking for a different kind of pace and sometimes u just have to honour the tiredness! but im grateful for the journey and for the commitment of others to the poetry. thank you! and thank you to the poets, writers & musicians! thank you to the audience! it's precious watching the year unfold through moments like this. thank you! and thank you @referencepoint180 for hosting us 💌
Act IV is on 28 April, tickets links are in the bio. 💌 also if you'd like to take part, whether that's as a reader, a musician, please reach out! i'd love to see what's possible 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 email me at [email protected]
‘And Suddenly I Can Say God: Self-Written Liturgy’ by Phoenix Yemi inside Worms 11: Faith & Worship. 🌙
The poet behind our monthly poetry newsletter, A Worm Moon, graces the pages of Worms 11 with a meditation on feminine subjectivity and eroticism. Channelling the voices of “multiple women inside my head, and multiple voices sharing my tongue”—from the biblical Eve to Anne Carson, The Story of O, Audre Lorde and Simone Weil—Yemi weaves a tapestry that confronts the patriarchal and oppressive legacy of institutionalised religion head-on.
A true gem. Read the full poem in Worms 11, out now 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎 featuring Phoenix’s own stunning collages!!
