Sky House Poetry

Lee is a mixed heritage writer, mother of three, and former Clinical Psychologist, from Ōtautahi, Chch, in Aotearoa NZ. Her cultural ancestry is Scots-Māori and Pākehā (Polish, Welsh, Scottish, French) and traditions of these are a source of inspiration. Themes in her writing include illness and vulnerability, coping through creative experience, nature’s intersect with domestic life, and women’s relationships and identity as mothers. Currently, she is at home most days nursing a chronic illness – but she is working on that! Here’s what Lee has to say about the Sky House:

“The Sky House refers both to my physical home and the metaphorical home of my imagination. In 2019 we moved to this house on the hill facing the Southern Alps. The view here is dominated by the skies and their ever changing moods, with their constancy of openness.

Shortly after moving here, my health deteriorated. Unhooked by illness from my usual occupations I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. With reduced vision, concentration, and mobility, I turned to poetry – an early love I had been missing with regret. Parenting and therapy work have been the privilege of a lifetime, but juggling these left little mental energy for recreational reading, let alone writing. With limited options for intellectual stimulation, I immersed myself in poetry. Poetry quickly became integral to my self-care – and an unexpected silver lining of the interruption to my usual life. This blog is born from this time of writing through illness.

The Sky House is a place where birds live high lives of daring. A place of ambiguity and beauty. Where inspiration condenses and aspirations form. The place that my sunsets rage, storms may rampage, and that always returns faithfully to long dark embraces, kissed by endless blue.”