This poem and episode are the last for season 2—we’ll be taking a bit of a break to revamp & rebuild for season 3! Some exciting changes & shifts are in store. Please stay tuned!

Our final episode for season 2 takes a deep dive into the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 method, which is a grounding technique meant to support you through stress, anxiety, and panic, hopefully guiding you back to the present moment. You begin by identifying 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. In addition, the poem incorporates some box breathing. As if tracing a box, this practice involves breathing in for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, breathing out for 4 seconds, and holding for 4 seconds (repeat as many times as needed). In the poem, we put a bit of a spin on the word ‘grounding’ by using these mindfulness techniques to follow the journey of a seed being planted and growing into a flower.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

I see a pair of eyes—one gold & one white— among a blue field of birds & unharvestable cotton. I stretch & slip between two bolls until my stem is parallel; until I can bend it like a back & let them stitch to it, helping me fly as if my leaves were feathers.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode explore a story—one of a young person navigating the grief of losing both their mother and their dog. But there is much more to this story, as there are always many layers of grief. This story brings us alongside someone re-writing what love’s residue is and how forgiveness isn’t linear.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Love can’t burn—burn away, that is— there’s always something left at the end to remind you that death isn’t your fault.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode use a Villanelle, which is a French form of poetry alternating two repeating lines. This episode is inspired by the famous poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night”, by Dylan Thomas. It allows us to think about moments when we’ve been afraid to venture outside, especially at night (literally and of ourselves). More specifically, the poem explores how we hide inside—our home and internally—from what we’re afraid of, thinking that we’re protecting ourselves. Sometimes this is necessary! Fear can be useful fireproofing, but not always. Though it feels safer and warmer indoors, there is much we can only see and experience outside (of ourselves and the literal places we hide in), even after the sun goes down.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

So hungry, I leave just a sliver of white and feed every memory of when I’d never been outside at night.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode walk alongside someone who has recently experienced sexual assault or violence. When they encounter a kind person in a coffee shop the morning after—who treats them very differently—they wrestle with the many emotions, feelings, and memories that arise.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

But the boy brought my coffee and held it out with both hands until I took it with both hands

And he spoke,

“You’re b…”

He looked down,

breathed out,

and said,

“I love your style” with the kindest furrowed brow smile I’d felt loved by in a long while.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode use a Tanka, a Japanese form of poetry usually a single unbroken sentence with 31 syllables. The number of lines (when these poems are translated into English) is typically 3-5 to spotlight the twist or turn in the last third or so of the poem. With the beginning of a new school year and the approach of fall, I wanted to create an episode that can serve as a sort of reminder/mantra to love and fill ourselves abundantly from the inside out, which, of course, allows us to offer rich and colourful love to others.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

I offer you as many arms as a tree and I pray you believe in enough to fill them with your leaves instead of paper…

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore a student’s experience of feeling overwhelmed nearing back-to-school season.

August is a complicated month—still summer, yet unofficially labelled the ‘get ready’ month, not unlike the end of December approaching New Year’s Resolutions. As a distraction, our narrator visits their town’s annual end-of-summer festival, where they learn that they can’t “overwhelm their overwhelm” with stimulation.

Sometimes, though the best preparation is soaking up every last ounce of summer, we forget that this includes rest (the same way an extra few hours of sleep before an exam will often be more beneficial than a few more hours of late-night studying).

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

We’ll wander around our house thinking about preparing while really, unable to think.

We’ll stand in our shower trying to scrub & rinse away overwhelm by scribbling those three words across the flexible fibreglass in the milky soap-ink of shampoo, conditioner, hot water & cold: back to school.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore the myriad of emotions, memories, thoughts, and feelings that surface and coexist on our birthdays.

Though birthdays are often thought of and marketed as celebratory, this dismisses the many painful ways people encounter their birthday or the fact that not everyone’s experience includes cake, balloons, singing, friends, family, parties, and presents. As with any milestone, birthdays can be marked and haunted by emptiness and feelings that we haven’t accomplished or fulfilled our purpose enough (among other things). This poem attempts to reframe birthdays in a supportive way.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

And I wondered, what if birthdays were every day rather than once a year?

If every day were one of birth?

Because more days for birth means more soil space for seasonal joy and the way it changes & charges us.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode bring us alongside someone who didn’t know how to help a struggling parent/guardian who offered abundant love, imagination, and play while they were alive. Eventually, the narrator realizes that these gifts—creativity, play, imagination, and love—from their parent/guardian are the very tools they can use to create and offer support, and even though they can’t ‘save’ their parent/guardian, they may be able to help others like them.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

I knew what I needed to do the moment the headlights came on, after which, it gets to be later & later— bluer & bluer— reminding me that all windows close & this one especially fast.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.