Exquisite Collaboration Poem: For Kay, who is remembered

The prompt for this poem, which was written in the summer of 2023 and never posted, was "I remember". There's a reason this one sat in a folder for almost two years.

Noosa Heads QLD, Australia / photo courtesy of Yulia Ryding/Unsplash

FOR KAY, WHO IS REMEMBERED (and deserves the long note at the end of this post)

* list of poets who contributed can be found at the end of this poem, along with the prompt and other information about the project*

I remember January summers in Australia and my grandma treating my frequent post-beach sunburn with cold, wet tea leaves, aaah, sweet relief.

I remember all day walks on the rocky beaches of Cuttyhunk Island and seeing the jagged, shipwrecked remnants of the last whaler out of New Bedford, The Wanderer, sticking out of the sea at low tide near Sow & Pigs Reef.

I remember learning to swim in Walden Pond.

I remember swimming in the icy waters off Cape Ann and sitting on a beach towel listening to the Beatles on my transistor radio.

I remember the sound of underwater as we played at mermaids diving through the round interior of a tractor inner tube.

I remember run/walking down the ramp as soon as we disembarked to get back in line for the front seat of the rollercoaster.

I remember the chilled watermelon at family reunions, the last best seed-spitting fight with the cousins.

I remember sunbathing in the summer sun listening to the water lap gently against the dock.

I remember standing on the deck of the home my family rented, and watching the waves of Lake Ontario crash on the rocks, wanting the feeling to last forever.

I remember the abandoned house down the street, peeling paint hidden behind tall weeds and a drapery of thick willows and shadowing oak, roof-line gutters fractured and falling into a frown, vacant windows like eyes following me down the street.

I remember the rubber smell of the inner tube as I floated on the calm jewel green waves of the lake.

I remember watching dark blue storm clouds hover over the western horizon surrounded by family and feeling safe.

I remember collecting tiger lilies at a church picnic with their orange trumpets to the sky.

I remember morning sun and full moon lace shadows on my bedroom walls.

I remember how you timed our arrival at the perfect sunset view.

I remember my summers spent in your winter, driving north instead of south to find the sun.

I remember playing ghost in the graveyard with neighborhood friends. Do kids even do that any more? I feel we are now ghosts in the graveyard.

I remember how summer once seemed endless, stretching across a stream of hot, steamy days and firefly nights, infused with the scent of lavender when the curtain goes up and buzzing with the wiry music of cicadas when the curtain is about to fall.

* * * * * * *

THE POETS:
Kay Ross
Anne Murphy
Kathy Ann Morris
Christina
Justin Rielly
s.
Jen
Andrea Penner
J.M. Roth
Leslie Joan Millenson

* * * * * * *

THE POETS HAIL(ED) FROM:
Hong Kong
NY state
Canandaigua, NY
Macedon NY
Rochester, NY
Rochester, NY, which must surely be a disappointment
New Mexico, USA
Hot Central Florida
Chicago, IL

* * * * * * *

THE PROMPT:
Write a sentence that begins with the phrase “I remember”. Poets could contribute up to three lines, which were included in the order they were submitted.

* * * * * * *

THE PHOTO:
Noosa Heads QLD, Australia; photo courtesy of Yulia Ryding/Unsplash

I don’t remember where Kay was from in Australia, but this beach seemed like an Australian beach I pictured in my head. (Kay, you’re free to let me know if I’m completely off base with this one.)

* * * * * * *

This poem is dedicated to the memory of Kay Ross.

Kay Ross was a remarkable human being. Kind, generous, gentle, smart, creative. The kind of human we need more of in the world. We met several years ago through the Applied Improvisation Network, when she took me under her wing and unofficially mentored me in the ways my creative brainstorms could change the world, cheering on every one of my wild and outside-the-box teaching ideas.

She was a powerhouse when it came to providing support. You will not find another human who will stand in your corner and cheer you on with such gentleness, grace, love, and honesty.

I’d been hosting the Exquisite Collaboration Poems for almost three years when I posted this prompt. It was during an extremely busy, difficult time of transition in my life. When the time came to assemble the submissions and post the poem, I was too overwhelmed to think about anything other than getting through each day. Kay and I would often chat on zoom and via email; Kay, I learned, was also dealing with her own personal burdens. We made plan to connect again during the summer. And then, simply carrying too many things, I pretty much dropped out of sight for a while. Kay sent me a few emails in August and September to see if I had posted the poem. I hadn't, and I told her I didn't know when I would, and I apologized for dropping every ball. I don't know why I put this off, other than to admit that the thought of simply copying and pasting and hitting “publish” seemed like such an enormous task I couldn't muster the emotional or physical energy to make it happen.

In hindsight, I don't know why I didn't ask Kay to do it for me. She was, without a doubt, the biggest supporter of this project, right from its inception. She probably would have happily taken on the task. And what a gift it would have been to have her run with this.

Because Kay left this earth at the end of September 2023.

I haven't been able to look at the submissions for this poem since I heard of her departure. Everything has just been sitting in a folder this entire time. Every time I've thought about posting it I just haven't been able to do it. I felt like I needed to tell you about instrumental Kay was to this project, how this was our last collaboration, and I wasn't sure how to do that. Kay meant so much to so many people and I was one very tiny part of the community that loved her. Who am I to convey the collective grief or the size of the hole she left in the world?

But I will say without hesitation that she was a true friend, to me and to so many people around the world, especially her improv community and her friends in Hong Kong, where she lived for decades. Like all of them, I adored her. I still have a hard time imagining that she's not on the other side of the world shining her light into every dark place, standing on the street giving out hugs, ready to send me notes every time she found a typo in one of my blog posts. (I'm sure there will be some in this post, and I'm going to leave them in Kay's honor.)

I think of Kay often. Once in a while, I send a message to her Facebook account, and even though I know they're not read, I hope the words find her on the Other Side. This week I had a dream about her - nothing specific that I can remember; she was just there, in stories my brain wove as I slept.

Tonight, I sat in a poetry workshop on zoom, listening to poet activists talking about their work in prisons and schools and on the streets, and how the power of poetry changes people and communities. And for the first time in a long time, I felt a spark ignite inside me.

This project was born during the dark days of Covid, when we all had nothing to lose creatively; it was the perfect time to try out an idea I’d been musing on for ages. It worked, far better than I could have imagined. Since then, these Exquisite Collaboration Poems have connected more than a hundred people from all around the world, strangers simply offering what they had and trusting it would come together to create something beautiful.

And it always did.

I think Kay would be disappointed that the whole thing stopped.

And so, it's time to at least finish what we started. Here is the last poem Kay contributed to; her's is the opening line. I hope when she passed, Kay was met on the Other Side by her grandma bearing cold, wet tea leaves to soothe her tender spirit.

I offered up one more prompt after this one, last April for 2024 National Poetry Month; I never posted that poem either. By then I felt like maybe the entire project had run its course, yet I couldn't bear to see it actually end. So I held onto both poems.

I have always felt the pull to bring people together for collective creativity. I've been missing that in my own life. But this project needs closure, or maybe just a period before a new chapter begins. Next week, I'll post that last poem, and we'll see where we go from there. (update 4/25/2025 It’s now online.)

Take care of yourself, my friends. You matter. And please, let your words loose into the world so that they join together with those from every corner of the globe to weave a tapestry of poetry throughout the Universe, for infinity. Write, sing, stand in the woods and scream at the top of your lungs, whatever you need to do. The world needs your voice.

Happy creating, lovely humans.
Much love,
Joanne

PS if you got this by email, you’ll see there’s one line that’s been slightly changed in this post. I hit publish and went to bed, and woke in the early morning hours feeling unsettled, because there are words that, while true, are just too jarring to acknowledge in the light of day, and are really not my story to put out into the world. So I made a slight edit. I hope you understand.

* * * * * * *

This Exquisite Collaboration Project is based on the Exquisite Corpse, a technique created by Surrealists in the early 1900s, in which participants add to a work with no one seeing what the other participants contributed. My goal is to encourage non-writers and artists to embrace their creative selves in a safe, supportive, “you can’t fail” environment. What began as a way to maintain some sort of connection with other people during the early days of the Covid lockdown has continued to unite strangers from around the world in creative collaboration.