Chelan Harkin

Chelan Harkin had a profound mystical experience at 21; in a time of mental/emotional anguish, she was shown how she needed to live in a more transparent and authentic way, and that she would access her gifts to the degree that she opened herself to joy, trauma, power, and tenderness. While Chelan recognized poetry as a love and a gift, its flow at that time was blocked by self-judgment and perfectionism. So she decided to allow herself to write "a bad poem" every day for a month. This...See more

Chelan Harkin had a profound mystical experience at 21; in a time of mental/emotional anguish, she was shown how she needed to live in a more transparent and authentic way, and that she would access her gifts to the degree that she opened herself to joy, trauma, power, and tenderness. While Chelan recognized poetry as a love and a gift, its flow at that time was blocked by self-judgment and perfectionism. So she decided to allow herself to write "a bad poem" every day for a month. This unlocked a different creative process and a poetic force that has not stopped flowing. Her publishing journey is only two years old but her first two books, Susceptible to Light and Let Us Dance! , have been self-publishing successes with sales numbers to be envied by most poets today. Her third book, Wild Grace , publishes in November 2023 with Monkfish. Chelan lives with her children in the Pacific Northwest. See less