Brooking has been in conversation with the world through poetry since she was a little girl writing about bluebells in her St. Louis backyard. For much of the last decade her poetry focused on the magic of the mundane and the questions that rise from meditation and the natural world. She has a Tedx Talk on poetry as a way of being, and spent many years exploring poetry through interactive performance to reconnect us with our older ways of engaging language as an inhabited and communal experience. Lately she's back on the page exploring the history and future of butterflies in a jar and the dangerous and delightful experience of the MFA and "publishing". 

An advocate for sanity in an increasingly crazy and isolated world, she is always up to something in the realm of community building, hosts a Podcast on solutions to plastic pollution, and works as a social change coach and facilitator. After many years of Californication, she's recently returned home to river city where she's reveling in seasons, family, and abundant water. 

A note on names: Brooking is an English name from her father's side of the family, though she often goes by Bee. Caldwell is an Irish name from her mother's side, and her middle name. She uses it (instead of Gatewood) in her pen-name to honor her maternal lineage. For published works, look for Brooking Caldwell. 


                                                                                     ~ CONNECT ~
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 (photo by Jim Wang)