Theartofsteppingaway

About Me Hi, I’m Joanna Stratford. 🌿 I’m a poet and writer who believes words can help us understand ourselves, preserve the people and moments we love, cross distances between cultures, and sometimes make a complicated world feel a little less divided. I write about faith, peace, belonging, memory, healing, grief, resilience, spirituality, nature, culture, food, language, and the wonderfully strange experience of simply being human. My writing doesn't belong to one subject or one form. Sometimes a poem begins with grief. Sometimes it begins with a question about faith. Sometimes it begins with something happening thousands of miles away. Other times it begins with a river, a recipe, a photograph, a flower, a childhood memory, or something so completely ridiculous that all I can do is laugh and write about it. Underneath all of those subjects, however, much of my writing returns to one simple belief: People matter. A Little About My Writing Poetry has always given me a place to say things I couldn't necessarily say any other way. Sometimes I write because something hurts. Sometimes I write because something is beautiful. Sometimes I write because I have a question I can't stop thinking about. Sometimes a memory returns after years and suddenly asks to become a poem. And sometimes life is simply funny. I believe there should be room in writing for all of it—the grief and the laughter, the questions and discoveries, the sacred moments and completely absurd ones. My work moves between poetry, personal essays, reflections, and creative projects. I enjoy experimenting with different poetic forms and traditions, including free verse, haiku, senryu, monostich, and Chinese shi poetry. I don't believe a writer ever reaches a point where there is nothing left to learn. I hope I never do. Language, Translation & Learning One of the most rewarding directions my writing has taken me is toward language and translation. Through poetry, translation, cultural exploration, and personal study, I have enjoyed learning aspects of several languages, including Japanese, Chinese, German, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic. I don't claim fluency in all of these languages, and I don't consider myself a professional translator. I am a learner, and that's an important distinction to me. I'm interested not only in what words mean, but in what happens to an idea when it travels from one language into another. Translation has taught me that language isn't simply a collection of different words for the same things. Words can carry history, culture, symbolism, humor, faith, family, and memories that don't always have an exact equivalent somewhere else. I've particularly enjoyed exploring Japanese through haiku and short-form poetry. It has encouraged me to think about imagery, nature, seasons, simplicity, silence, and how much can be communicated through what a poem chooses not to say. My exploration of Chinese, including shi poetry, has introduced me to different approaches to imagery, nature, balance, memory, and poetic expression. I've also enjoyed learning about both Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters and discovering how visually and culturally rich written language can be. I've explored German through translations of my poetry and other writing. I enjoy discovering how the structure and rhythm of German can change the feeling of something I originally wrote in English. It has reminded me that an accurate translation isn't always enough—the emotional character of the original matters too. Italian has an especially personal connection for me because it is part of my family heritage. Exploring Italian gives me another way to connect with that heritage while learning more about its language, literature, culture, traditions, and food. It also fits naturally with my love of cooking and my belief that recipes can preserve culture just as words do. My explorations of Hebrew and Aramaic often intersect with my spiritual writing and my curiosity about faith, scripture, history, and the languages connected with the world in which my faith emerged. I've also explored Arabic, particularly through some of my peace writing. Learning how ideas such as peace, hope, grief, compassion, and humanity can be expressed across linguistic and cultural boundaries has become especially meaningful to me. Sometimes translating one of my poems even changes the way I understand the English original. I love that. I want to understand why a particular word matters. I want to know when an image travels beautifully between languages and when it needs to change. I want to understand the difference between translating the words of a poem and carrying the spirit of that poem into another language. And when I make mistakes, I want to learn from those too. Every language teaches me something—even when what it teaches me is how much more there is left to learn. Language reminds me that difference does not have to mean distance. A poem can begin in one language and find a home in another. And somewhere between the two, perhaps we understand one another a little better. Peace & Our Shared Humanity Peace is one of the strongest recurring themes in my work. I write peace poems not because I believe every conflict is simple, but because I believe humanity should never be forgotten within them. Whether I am writing about the United States, Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, Iran, or another country or community affected by conflict, my intention is never to erase complexity, history, or individual perspectives. It is to acknowledge the human lives existing beneath the headlines, politics, borders, and division. Behind the names of countries are people. People have families. People fall in love. People cook dinner. People worry about their children. People miss their parents. People pray. People laugh with friends. People remember home. People grieve. People hope. I believe grief, fear, loss, hope, and compassion exist in every part of the world. A border doesn't make someone's grief less real. A different language doesn't make someone's fear less real. A different religion doesn't make someone's child less loved. And recognizing one person's suffering does not require us to stop caring about someone else's. My writing comes from the belief that empathy and kindness should not be limited by nationality, religion, language, ideology, or social status. For me, peace writing is not about pretending suffering is identical everywhere. It is about refusing to become numb to human suffering anywhere. 🌿 Recipes for Peace One of the projects closest to my heart is Recipes for Peace, a cookbook and poetry collection inspired by comfort, culture, memory, history, healing, and the ways food can connect people across different backgrounds and experiences. I collect cookbooks from around the world and love learning about different cultures through their food, stories, histories, and traditions. To me, recipes hold far more than ingredients. They can preserve a grandmother's kitchen. They can carry a family tradition across generations. They can travel with people across borders. They can survive displacement and hardship. They can remind us of childhood, celebrations, people we have loved, and places we once called home. A recipe can carry pieces of history, family, identity, survival, memory, and love. Food tells stories. But food also creates something remarkably simple: A table. And a table gives people somewhere to sit. I often wonder how differently we might see one another if we could sit together, learn together, cook together, share our stories, and look into the eyes of people we have been taught to see only as enemies. Perhaps we would discover more of ourselves sitting across from us than we expected. One of the thoughts behind Recipes for Peace is: “If we all can sit together and break bread in peace and share food for thought, all the animosity and struggles will fade away.” I don't believe sharing a meal can magically solve every conflict. But recognizing another person's humanity is somewhere to begin. Where I Believe Peace Begins I don't believe peace begins with perfection. I don't believe it requires complete agreement. And I don't believe peace means pretending conflict doesn't exist. I believe it begins in smaller places. It begins when someone chooses to listen instead of hate, understand instead of assume, and create instead of destroy. Sometimes peace begins through a poem. Sometimes through a conversation. Sometimes through sharing a story, a recipe, or a memory. Sometimes it begins when we become curious enough to learn about someone whose culture, religion, language, or experiences are different from our own. And sometimes it begins by simply sitting together long enough to recognize ourselves within another human being. The world may always contain noise, division, and people determined to extinguish hope before it has the chance to grow. But I still believe there is power in choosing compassion anyway. I still believe light reaches farther than darkness, even when shadows try to convince us otherwise. Perhaps that is where healing truly begins—not in pretending the world is free from pain, but in refusing to let pain be the only thing we leave behind for one another. The Quiet Things Matter Learning about the struggles of people both near and far has reminded me that even the smallest actions in our everyday lives can affect more people than we realize. It has also taught me that continuing to move forward in my own life, work, creativity, and growth matters. Creating matters. Learning matters. Helping matters. Encouraging someone matters. Sometimes the quietest acts of compassion, kindness, empathy, understanding, encouragement, and perseverance ripple farther than we will ever fully know. To me, this is another way of fighting for what is right—not through hatred, revenge, or division, but through courage, empathy, healing, resilience, and the willingness to keep moving forward during difficult times. Distance means very little when humanity is shared. Faith, Reflection & Spirituality Many of my spiritual poems are rooted in my faith, spirituality, personal healing, and a deep appreciation for Gaia, nature, and the Earth itself. My faith is grounded in curiosity and reflection are important parts of my spiritual life. I also appreciate Christianity, Taoist philosophy and teachings about balance, simplicity, compassion, mindfulness, humility, inner peace, and living in greater harmony with the natural world. I don't see learning from another tradition as something that requires me to abandon my own. I believe we can listen, learn, reflect, and grow. Nature frequently becomes part of my spiritual language. Rivers. Doves. Rain. Flowers. Trees. Oceans. Lighthouses. Changing seasons. Even weeds growing somewhere someone decided they didn't belong. They have all found their way into my poetry. For me, spiritual Faith is less about fear, control, or judgment and more about compassion, healing, grace, self-reflection, growth, and creating space for ourselves and others to heal and evolve. I believe faith should make us more capable of seeing another person's humanity—not less. And I don't believe faith requires me to stop asking questions. I don't have every answer. I'm much more interested in continuing to ask meaningful ones. What does grace look like when we encounter someone different from ourselves? What does faith mean when life becomes painful? How do we forgive without pretending something didn't hurt? How do we make room for other people without abandoning ourselves? How do we love without trying to control? And what does it truly mean to belong? Belonging Without Losing Yourself I write often about belonging and visibility—particularly the difference between being permitted to exist somewhere and genuinely being able to exist there as yourself. I don't believe belonging should require disappearing. I am interested in the places where identity, relationships, boundaries, faith, society, and self-discovery intersect. What happens when acceptance requires us to become smaller? When is stepping away an act of defeat, and when is it an act of courage? How do we make room for other people without abandoning ourselves? How can we disagree without trying to erase one another? Where are we free to grow while still remaining ourselves? Those questions appear throughout my poetry, and I suspect I'll spend a lifetime exploring them. Memory, Grief & Love I write frequently about memory because I believe the people we have loved continue to influence the way we experience the world long after particular chapters of our lives have ended. Sometimes remembrance is painful. Sometimes it's beautiful. Sometimes it's hilarious. Sometimes a smell, song, photograph, recipe, flower, movie, or completely ordinary object suddenly opens a door we didn't realize was still there. I don't think healing always means closing that door. Sometimes healing means learning that we can visit the room without having to live there again. Writing gives me a way to honor what mattered while continuing to move forward. A poem can preserve a moment. A story can preserve a voice. A recipe can preserve a kitchen. And sometimes remembering is itself an act of love. The Art of Stepping Away One of the ideas at the heart of much of my work is learning when to hold on—and when to step away. Stepping away doesn't always mean giving up. Sometimes it means recognizing that something has taught us everything it was meant to teach us. Sometimes it means establishing a boundary. Sometimes it means forgiving without returning. Sometimes it means realizing that peace isn't always found by winning an argument. Sometimes it means understanding that belonging somewhere should not cost us ourselves. And sometimes we simply need enough distance to hear our own voice again. That idea has influenced my poetry, my personal writing, and several of the book projects I continue to develop. What You'll Find Here My writing doesn't fit neatly into one category. I don't particularly want it to. Here you'll find poetry, personal essays, spiritual reflections, memories, writing exercises, discussions about poetry and language, translations and language-learning, peace writing, recipes, cultural exploration, humor, works in progress, and whatever else happens to capture my curiosity. Some posts may be deeply serious. Others may involve me laughing at something completely absurd. Both belong here. Because both belong to life. I want this space to remain curious. I want it to be compassionate without pretending the world is uncomplicated. I want to listen. I want to learn. I want to be able to change my mind when I discover something new. I want to keep growing without being ashamed of who I was before I knew what I know now. I want to learn about people whose lives, languages, cultures, beliefs, and experiences may look very different from mine. I want to recognize difference without turning difference into distance. Most importantly, I want to write without losing sight of the person on the other side of the words. I'm Joanna Stratford. I'm a poet and writer, a collector of stories and cookbooks, a student of faith, language, culture, and humanity, and someone who still believes empathy, faith, humor, curiosity, creativity, hope, and kindness have something worthwhile to offer a wounded world. I'm still learning. Still creating. Still asking questions. Still finding beauty in unexpected places. And still believing that sometimes the smallest things we leave behind—a poem, a meal, a memory, a kind word—can travel farther than we will ever know. Thank you for stopping by. You are welcome at my table. 🌿