LIQUID | SOLID | GAS, MOTHER
LIQUID | SOLID | GAS
MOTHER speaks to the ever-changing form of water. Whilst writing this, Deanna was still in her development phase of the Clore Fellowship. On the first residential, Deanna had questioned where she had put her ‘artist-ness’ since she had become a parent. She had continued to make work as a poet, collaborating with high-profile clients and maintaining a reputation as an impressive UK poet, but she knew that deep down that she was not listening to who she had become. She was treading the certain and safe path. She was refusing to collaborate with the transformation she had had to undergo to become a parent.
When I became a mum, I was so scared that ‘Deanna’ would disappear, so professionally, I held tight to the form I’d become so good at and refused to move through the cycle. It felt too messy, too precarious for a freelancer who had moved to a new city. Something had to stay the same. So, even when the system around me needed me to evaporate, even when the temperature dropped and tried to get me to freeze, I would not change, I would not. I would not become what the environment imposed on me. But what is an ice block on the beach? Rain cannot return to the cloud as droplets. Steam must accept itself as light.
Water is life because it never disappears, it changes form.
Embracing the changes of state. Changing states in different circumstances.
It is constantly in relation to its environment.
It feeds the trees and the clouds
It changes the shape of planets.
It is not alone.
It is a vital force in this world.
It is playful and powerful.
When we say ‘water’ we think of something, but it is many different things. Like a mother.
LIQUID | SOLID | GAS
MOTHER
There is always a choice.
To give
or to take.
To rise or to fall.
To walk or to run.
There is always change.
Years ago, I went to The Falls
To visit the great crash of water
To feel small and in awe.
I did not have to travel so far.
I could have stood in a puddle.
What is it that you need to know in order to become what you are?
The thing that you are.
Breathe in.
There is a stillness if you let it.
Breathe out.
There is a stillness before the turn.
The thing about water is that it knows no bounds.
To contain it is to lose it.
It will find a way to fly,
And in this you are alike.
But what is this force?
Something to battle?
To escape?
To push away?
Something has been smoothed over.
Something has been forced into shape.
Something needs to be maintained.
Something is crashing.
When was the last time you measured the heights of your falling and rising tides?
There is distance between here and there.
There is an unknown
There is a space.
There is a question of nature.
Of progression in relation to evolution
Hold still in the fog!
In the awe
In the magnitude
Of all that has come before
Hold still in the rush!
In the crash of the fall
In the waves
There is alignment.
You measure up.
Where are you going?
Pulling away from yourself in the distance
In the determination
Pulling towards
Until it becomes the same
There is life on the road.
There are twists and turns.
What am I trying to say?
There is space.
There is room to take.
Space
To zoom out
To soar
To sky views
And to return
To look thought through new windows.
To explore this world
This time
This city
This reality with fresh eyes
With magic me
With prism of possibility
There is flight.
And creature, and you, creature,
are pond and pavement,
you are balance and disruption,
you are witnessed in the delicate buzz of becoming
About the author
Deanna Rodger
Deanna won the UK Poetry Slam at age 18. Since then she has pushed down closed doors and held them open for others, curating spoken word events, facilitating workshops, writing prolific commissions, and mentoring. She is a Pervasive Media Studios Resident, trustee of Easton Children’s Community Centre and a Clore Fellow. Recently her reimagined version of ‘If’ was read by Serena Williams and she featured on BBC’s The Art That Made Us.
As a poet and facilitator she has worked in countries across five continents and has been commissioned by numerous brands and organisations including; FIFA, Disney, St Paul’s Cathedral, Nationwide, Keats’ House Museum, Young Vic, Adidas, and BBC. She designs and delivers educational programs, and tutors at the School of Communication Arts. She has two publications. ‘I Did It Too’ celebrating a decade of work, (Burning Eye Books) and ‘his fingers have left’ a process and poetry collection of five form poems responding to Kevin Elyot’s archive in the Bristol University’s Theatre Collection (also Burning Eye Books).
Theatre commissions include Greek Myths Reimagined (Unicorn Theatre) (2022), Now We Are Here (Young Vic) (Dir. Ian Rickson) (2016), and Sing Before You Speak Again (Young Vic) (Dir. Thomas Martin, Composer Joseph Atkins) (2017).
She trained as an actor with The National Youth Theatre REP Company and has worked as an actor professionally.
Deanna is a mother.
Special thanks to Matthew Merttens, Katie Villa, Sophie Ellerby, Rosie Penrose, Alice Ballentine-Dykes, and Susan Worsfold.
Themes Alumni Journeys Leadership Styles Qualities of Leadership
