poetry and workshops by gimblett

“the Spell in the Woods” Poetry Workshop (2024)

This year I taught my very first Poetry Workshop.

It’s called “The Spell in The Woods” and is a fun little adventure that takes about 2 hours.

You can do it solo, or as part of a group.

Calendar poetry (2023)

As part of my Postcard Poetry project (find on patreon), I have been writing poems for each month of the year.

Working on an urban farm for the last 5 years, plus my work in returning to the old ritual-thinking of my people, have given me a new appreciation for the way the year is framed.

The way the spring comes slowly at first than all at once, summer is vibrant and intense with activity, fall is the dying, and winter is the dead. Over and over, we see the cycle of birth and life and dying and death, but then rebirth.

What a gift to know that everything has its own time.

What a joy to know the world was built with dying in mind.

All OUR loves are your loves too (2024)

All Our Loves Are Your Loves Too is a chapbook commissioned by Katie Hofacker at the start of 2024.

I was given very free rein to write what I wanted, the themes of Katie’s project being: love, pride, inclusivity, rainbows.

I learned, as we often do these days, through a beautiful tumblr post that there were many types of love in old greek culture / philosophy. This knowledge appeared in my life when I needed a little extra hug. Growing up, women are taught to prioritise only romantic love, and by extension, family love.

And if you are betrayed by both, sometimes you can feel unloved and unlovable.

I feel very lucky to be living in a time where that is changing. There are so many other types of love that make up our lives and fill us with abundance. Loneliness is a potent problem, and one way to address it, and to fight against the idea that there is no love outside of the hetero-normative experience, is to acknowledge all of the types of love that make up a life. That loves can be reached for, even if some loves are not your lived experience.

In this chapbook, I explore and redefine eros, philia, storge, agape, plautilia, xenia, as well as the rest.

ghostflood (2022)

ghostflood came from a poetry challenge I took part in in 2022 to write 21 poems in 21 days.

Unfortunately, this collection is something I’m not very proud of for relatively dumb reasons - it was my first attempt at poetry after an almost 10 year break, and I was trying very hard to get a lot of nasty stuff out of my soul. It’s a little beautiful, a little rough around the edges, a little sanctimonious, a little bit too vulnerable for my liking.

I find it hard to read because I remember who I was at that time and how awful and shame-filled I felt to be sharing myself with the world again. But without it, I wouldn’t have written so many other fantastic pieces.

I think it’s a good exercise to put that kind of work out there too. A lot of what I’m trying to do these days continues to centre removing ancient shames from my inner world, so here I am, shining a little light on the inside, warts and all.