Storyteller of the Week

 Holly Payne-Strange

 

 

Holly Payne-Strange and her wife Iris on their wedding day

Holly Payne-Strange has been writing in various forms throughout most of her life, although it’s certainly gone through phases. She started out as a playwright, heavily influenced by the theater as she spent a lot of time both on and around the stage. In time, she realized her love was for writing words more than saying them. However, before she moved on from theater, she had the honor of directing work across NYC and London, working as a director/producer duo with her mother.

From there, she moved on to audio drama, writing for a podcast that The New York Times called “one of the top ten narrative podcasts to bring drama into your home.” She also created the podcast Echoes, which asks the question “If reincarnation was scientifically proven to exist, how would the world change?” This work was called “genuinely captivating” by LA Weekly and “profound and sincerely engaging” by USA Today.

Echoes was also heavily influenced by her mother, who has medically died twice. Thankfully, due to the miracles of modern science, she was brought back again and is now living happily and healthily in North Carolina. This normalization of ‘reincarnation’ (or the closest thing we can get to it) has been a huge influence on her work, as she explores themes of transformation and seizing the moment.

Next came poetry. Although she now writes about a variety of topics, she was first inspired by the love she has for her wife and the desire to express that. Her English language poetry has been published by various groups, including Door Is A Jar magazine, Call me [Brackets], Quail Bell Magazine, Poetry Breakfast and will soon be featured in Red Door, among others. She is also a founding editor of Aardvark and Tarot Literary. Her work originally in Italian has been published by Origami Poems and We Have Food At Home. She currently has a mysterious muse she adores writing poetry about!

Currently, she’s focusing on writing novels. Her most recent work, "All of us Alone," was a recommended read for Women Writers, Women’s Books. Additionally, she’s given talks on writing at Fordham University and The Player’s Club. In her spare time, she loves to play Dungeons and Dragons (it's how she met her wife), knit sweaters that are either too big or too small, but somehow never the right size, and cuddle her three cats.
 

Comments by Sharon Waller Knutson

I fell in love with the poetry of Holly Payne-Strange because she is not afraid of being honest, brave, vulnerable and herself. I love the imagery and the intriguing titles and the wisdom and authenticity in her writing.  She reminds me of me. People were always telling me: You can’t do that and I would say, watch me and I did it anyway. Like Holly, I achieved my goals by breaking the glass ceiling.

I am proud to publish these poems by Holly.
 

 By The Lake

I once had a hug so good it stopped time.

 I fell into emerald green
and somehow forgot my feet,
leaving them by the lake
as the leaves rustled
and memory whispered
“Yes. This is the place”

And I know you felt it too.
You hesitated, just for a moment.
But I knew you couldn't resist
Me.

Though the hill was steep
and the car a mess,
and the shop a wild place, the filthiest clean I had ever seen.

When we fell, we fell together.
Wind and breath and hope and…
something
all mingling together.  
A sweetness that made me lose my mind.

That hug must have stopped time.

I can’t think of any other
reasonable
explanation.

We Didn't Get Out Of The Car

In hindsight, that was the night Everything Went Bad.

At the time,  I thought it was sweet,
A bird perching nervously on a windowsill,
A butterfly scared away by the slightest movement.

But words are more ephemeral still.

I was trying not to be me,
I guess that was the problem.
I should have pushed harder, I should have pinned the topic down,

Got a real answer.
But I was afraid of scaring you.
And I think you were afraid of hurting me.

So instead it dissipated, rising into the air,
Leaving you with your assumptions, me with mine,
Choking on the smoke of what could have been.  

I want
More than everything else
To crash back to earth with you.
To dive into the real, the mud and the leaves.
To be maddeningly clear
To get messy.

Maybe if I’m patient enough,
The moon will fall down
And everything will be
Normal again. 

Hope Like (Stained) Glass  

TV shows about missing people hit differently these days.
And I know you’re not missing missing
No ransom note, no carefully crafted B plot
To keep us hooked till the credits roll.
No montages.  
That’s probably the worst, the days are very long.

But you’re gone.
And I mean you’re gone gone.  
As in I called the hospitals,
I habitually check obituaries.
Wondering idly if you’d even have one.
The dreams are the worst.
Because they’re so normal.
We  just chat, catch up as if nothing ever changed
Accentuating what I can not have
Like the suggestion of sunlight
Through stained glass.

 I know you’ve slept rough before.
I understand the silences, the parts of the story you try to laugh through,
Though it’s obvious to everyone
(Expect maybe you)
That you can’t.  

I live my life best I can
Checklists and schedules
 Keeping things nice and orderly.
As if my life is a house
I have to keep tidy for you.
Have to?
I’m such a liar.
Get to keep for you.
Because for all my complaints
I just want you home. 

A Treasure Trove
 
I’ve been rather stupid today.
I worked and showered, ate and drank,
but I hesitated to write.
When I realized why, I laughed.
Today, I must kill off my favorite character.
The one I worked so hard on,
polished like silver and chiseled like marble.
How foolish am I,  how silly?
To feel so sad over a thing I freely choose to do
planed on,
relished, even.

But I think it’s lovely, in a way,
that we can develop such complex emotions,
uncovered like diamonds from the earth.
That connection can be reflexive,
unconscious and naturally grown.
That somethings are beautiful,
even if they are only
debatably ‘Real’.

Dusk

The red light glinting
on a rain soaked road.
The click clack of your high heels
as we run, dodging droplets.
Skirts swaying,
hands held
a laugh lifting off,
getting caught bellow Brooklyn Bridge
as we wait for a  
taxi that isn't coming.

I’ll always remember today.
And the way our lipstick looked
together on that glass.

Two Sunflowers

The ground was uneven,
as I sauntered through the sunflower field,
happy to be lost for a while in its soft,
repetitive beauty.
Earth sings with a bumblebee hum,
a smile of time and something more.

My wife is transitioning from male to female.
She smiles with a budding pride
as she tries on dresses,
and embraces a new name.
Her voices changes,
a veneration of discovery.

It’s so nice
to see beautiful things
grow.

 This is Mine Now

I cut it up.
And I won’t apologize for that.
I can’t.
I made something
A M A Z I N G
out of it.
Something better.
Snuggles in front of a fire,
and giggling nail polish.
My wife picked blue
while I did mine in butterfly silver.

Together we gasped
over the things you said.
Chuckling as we reminisced about all the
awful, terrible, horrible, useless, pointless, vomit-inducing
{REDACTED}
we’d come across over the years.
Pride groups are fun, but the streets are still
                Messy.

We grabbed our scissors,
made insults into paper snowflakes
red with ribbon to trim the tree.

I know you tried.
You did your best.
but that makes it worse.

I need boundaries. And standards and room to breathe,
something unpolluted by your attempts at grace.
Sometimes letting go is the real gift.