Natasha Pepperl's “The Stakes” & “to be present in the real world”

Following the unexpected death of two young family members, I turned to poetry as a way of creating beauty from pain. Grief and trauma can cause the same phrases and images to play on a mental loop. During a week of particularly intense grief, I wasn’t able to come up with any new poems on my own. But found poetry allowed me the creative freedom I needed to find my voice.

To create the following poems, I used articles and color blocks from a TIME Magazine. Then I added stitches by hand to create more texture, feeling, and durability. I used colorful thread and unorthodox patterns so the sewing avoided resembling the hospital stitches that are burned into my memory. Then I used Photoshop to add more borders.

Though it wasn’t intentional, the poems that resulted have underlying themes of grief—but also speak to the intense connectedness that is humanity.