To start living how I want the world to be

May 13, 2026 | Sheree

What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?

I’ve been noticing how my work/ being has been reactive. There’s been a sense of scarcity and time urgency that’s been guiding my thoughts and actions. There’s been a hopelessness. Because some incidents are out of my control but which have impacted me. There’s been feelings of not being appreciated, feeling a lack of trust and working without purpose, moving away from my core values and moral compass.

I might have been using food or drink to numb my way through the shit. Through the ‘work’, not allowing myself to feel and be present. Really present to all the feels.

Do you feel me?

I know I need to take a step back and really look at the life I’ve been living. This is the only life I have and cannot be relived. I have a deep desire to change the system. To abolish the system and live otherwise.

And yet in order to change the system, I have to change my life, how I live my life. The way / how I live has to reflect the way/ how I want the world to be.

What does this mean in reality?

How I am just as much as what I do within the system will have an effect on system change. I have to be living my life with intention and purpose. Making sure I’m living my values, that I’m not compromising my integrity. That each decision I make is coming from that place of love and trust and hope.

That I’m not shutting down but open to togetherness but also trusting my gut that when I say ‘no’ it’s not from a place of malice but from a place of capacity and boundaries.

I’m learning, I’m sharing and I’m growing. Alone and in collaboration.

And I’m feeling and shifting into the practice and recognition that this is coming from a place of love and care rather than exhaustion and pain.

Small steps. Small acts. Small makes up the large. Small scales up to large.

I’ve got to be practicing the world I want to see now in my own life. Daily. Practice.

Love not hate.

Cooperation not competition.

Conversation rather than condemnation.

More care less harm.

More listening less violence.

The turn towards Mother Nature rather than against her.

A recognition in the value and worth of every human being regardless of race, class, gender, religion, ethnicity, age, sexuality, body type and body and mind abilities.

a tall structure topped by a powerful light used as a beacon

February 25, 2026 | Sheree

plot

February 19, 2026February 20, 2026 | Sheree

Sharing Darkling

November 1, 2024 | Sheree

I share my new poetry collection Darkling, come 7 November, 6-7.30 pm (GMT). I’m excited about speaking these words aloud in company. There’s something magical happens when we give voice to our creations. Allow the words, language to reverberate through our bodies. We come to the words almost anew, a fresh and feel all the emotions and meanings as they enfold again and for the first time.

I know it’s going to be an emotional session to share as this book was a long time in the making. I’ve changed so much in its creation. But I’m ready.

I share a poem with you today from Darkling. And please join me in its launch next week.

found poem: we arrived here with stars in our hair and needles between our toes*

after drea brown

be autumn/ be siskin/ be slick

twilight licks our dark skin

deep within the forest

straining through spruce/ larch and pine

(trial & error I learnt their names/ names

are never easy on black bodies)

living within the unknown (out)side

where history is wet/ with memory/ & muchness

within the shadows/ within the wake

we search/ for a tenderness in the brokenness

breathing in/ in-between spaces

tongue locked/ tongue packed/ tongue tied

we be/ but not be/

unfurling like tight fisted ferns

brown bruised/ violence against ourselves

into the woods/ in flight/ in creep creek/

in restless/ motherless moan

shapeshifting/ combing the black air/

what would happen/ if we linger

in the midst/

/////////slow////////down////////slow//////motion///////

refusing to be absent for ourselves/////////slow///////breathing//////

together/ listening to each other/ listening

to this haunting presence/refusing to play dead/

stay dead/

*the title is inspired by something within Paul Taylor, ‘Black Aesthetics’, Philosophy Compass 5/1 2010.

<https://sites.hampshire.edu/blackaesthetics/files/2017/03/taylorpaul-blackaesthetics.pdf>

For Blackbirds

September 9, 2024 | Sheree

Things are happening this Autumn.

I was invited to submit my chapbook, for blackbirds pushing against glass, to a new press, The Wildheart Press, created by Eleanor Cheetham.

I was part of Eleanor’s Soulbook course offering in 2023 where I had the time and space to explore my creative fugitivity. Breaking the rules were welcome.

So Eleanor was familiar with my work when she approached me to submit my feral words to her press. I jumped at the chance because the words were already created. This was an opportunity to share my words further. And I just love supporting a person and a press who recognises that I do not colour within the lines. My writing does not stay on the straight and narrow path. My words like to wander and meander and that is mighty fine with me.

I’m grateful to find a home for them in The Wildheart Press.