2025 was a wildly interesting year for me. I traveled all over the world working as a photographer and rooted myself deeply in my inner life, community, artistic practice, and career.
One of the most important shifts I’m experiencing is that more and more, I find myself identifying as an artist as opposed to a photographer. Photography remains the most important part of my practice, but not the only medium that defines it.
Instead of sharing a bunch of photos from this year, I decided to put together a short digital zine of my poems called sparkle.
About a year and a half ago, I started writing poems. I don’t know why, I just started writing.
Initially, I saw what I was writing as short stories that resonated in a deeper way when they were formatted less linearly. If you're familiar with my book Close to the Bayou, you'll know that I've been writing in that way for a while.
The line between prose and poetry still feels very vague to me. But after some mental back and forth, it became easier to claim and own that they’re poems. I’m still figuring out what that means to me—to find my poetic voice through writing. I’m enjoying the process, playing with it, trying to take it seriously and equally unseriously. To have fun with it while also exhaling the existential considerations of living and dying—no big deal, right?
I feel vulnerable sharing some of these poems, but one of the most important visions I made for myself in 2025, one I will retain in 2026, is to be fearless. So here I am, the day before New Year’s Eve, fearlessly sharing some intimate parts of my inner dialogue.
I hope there’s a glimmer of resonance in here for you.
Happy New Year!