CATE ROOT
Cate Root is a poet in New Orleans. She moved here at 22 for no good reason and with no named ambitions. In nearly twenty years, she has found community with former NOLAFugees correspondents, her cohort at UNO's MFA program, journalists in a precarious industry, socialists who believe in a better world, and poets. She was a driving force behind Dogfish, and her new reading series is called ALOUD. Once a quarter, she hosts a 10-day poem-a-day collective writing project, RECESS.
POEM OF THE DAY
RECCESS
We celebrate RECESS every season
Recess is a practice in attention and idleness. For ten days, we will slow our attentions and follow our intuitions and flights of fancy. Whether we write a poem every day or not. Whether we read everyone’s poems promptly or catch up when we can.
When you’re a part of Recess, you have the opportunity to visit other people’s consciousnesses. You get to interrupt the mundanity of daily life with a visit to the celestial, cerebral, silly, absurd, and sublime personas that others create.
Recess is a communal celebration and playspace. We gather as a practice in attention. The freedom and flexibility of asynchronous online communication, with the intimacy of a sacred space. Recess is not about producing quality goods. It’s not an accountability cheer squad or a workshop. It is a place to honor our inner children, to follow our whimsy, and to play with ideas.
What makes Recess special is you. The joy of Recess is people surprising themselves. And it’s richer when everyone feels that their voice and perspective can take a place in the communal celebration.