Maya Williams is Portland’s Poet Laureate
Here at Nature Links, we feel so lucky to be met by so many talented and kind guest speakers. Scientists, artists, musicians, naturalists and so many more have joined us to share their work and expertise with us and answer our questions. Last week we were lucky enough to be visited by Maya Williams, the current Poet Laureate of Portland, Maine. Maya identifies as “a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor,” and Maya’s poetry touches on themes of suicide awareness, religion, mental health, grief, and healing. Maya's debut poetry collection, Judas & Suicide will be released next week, so we were excited to get a sneak peek at a few poems in this upcoming collection.
Maya started our reading with a poem called “Won’t You Play With Me?”
Won’t You Play with Me?
Won’t you play with me?
And laugh as the sun shines through our eyes and teeth?
As our feet in the grass collect dirt and pebbles that hurt
too good? As we become adventurers from a place of pure
curiosity and not harm? When rain comes down, we could
catch the raindrops on our tongue to taste the air shift?
Discover immersive temperature changes? Use sticks
as dolls? Use ladybugs or caterpillars as co-conspirators?
Sit in a pile of mulch while we read through Matilda or
Esperanza Rising? Gaze at cumulus clouds that are actually
giraffes or trains? Embody tigers through our arms and legs?
Roar with our whole chests? Loud enough to make the neighbors
join us or hate us? Hide behind my mom’s Brazilian statue we
refuse to name in case they have a name we don’t know? Roll
down a hill just to run it back up again? Let the sun return to crisp
the mud dry and our hair frizz? Turn a park’s jungle gym into a castle?
A fifty year old tree into a mountain? Make the outdoors our fortress?
So the indoors won’t claim to own us?
Breathe it all in with me, won’t you?
Nature Links participants have been learning a lot about poetry recently in preparation to write and perform their own slam poems. One thing that has really caught our attention is the power of poetry in allowing us to communicate things we couldn’t say otherwise. From grieving a lost family member to animal cruelty to living with a traumatic brain injury, participants are crafting ways to express beliefs, ideas, and feelings that can be difficult to communicate in other ways. Weaving together a combination of metaphor, meter, and language can help us all make sense of the world and our unique place in it.
Maya’s poetry has certainly done that. Maya’s poems express a depth of emotion that feels raw and vulnerable and brave (especially those that touch on suicide awareness). The act of writing and performing them is truly an act of hope. We’ve all been inspired by Maya’s poetry and her willingness to share these meaningful words with us. Thank you, Maya!
To check out more of Maya’s work, visit her website and/or check out her TEDx performance called “Why Poetry Has Been Keeping Me Alive”.
