"create whenever and however you can"

poet and SWIMM co-founder Catherine Prescott on her new book Superbloom and the interwoven nature of creative work and caregiving

Hello there! Welcome to Be Less Careful. This is a good creatures interview, a series that explores the intersection of caregiving and creative practice. If you know (or are!) a good creature whose work we should feature, send me an email—you can just reply to this newsletter.

Today’s interview is with poet Catherine Prescott, whose new book Superbloom is out now. The poems in Superbloom span the time from the diagnosis of Prescott’s middle child, Austen, with a rare, inoperable brain cancer to his passing and the months after. In an interview at the Colorado Review, Prescott described the collection as “a story of love and hope and pain and sadness and celebration.”

Below, we talk about prompts as a way to trick ourselves into writing again, why her writing life “has never looked like an ideal writer’s life,” and the way that caregiving has given Prescott “endless empathy and gratitude.”

Catherine Prescott, 📸 Chantal Lawrie

Who do you care for?

I care for my children, although it is different now that they are older: 23, f18¹, and 16. For 11 months, my husband and I cared intensely for our son Austen, when he was diagnosed with an inoperable, pediatric brain cancer in the brainstem. (This type of brain cancer slowly takes away a person’s ability to balance, walk, stand, talk, see, hear, chew, and swallow–almost in that order.)

What kind of creative work do you do?

I’m a poet and writer, sometimes singer and harmonium player.

order your own copy of Superbloom

Is there something specific you do to jumpstart creativity?

When my kids were young, I’d write when they were at school or during those brief interstitial moments: waiting in the school pick-up line, walking home from dropping them off at a playdate, etc. My subconscious was so backed up that whenever I had a free minute, poems would come. They weren’t always good, but they came. At some point over the years, scraps of paper turned into voice memos. I love writing poems out loud, and I still use this method when poems come when I’m in movement.

When I don’t know where or how to begin writing again, I give myself an assignment–to write in a given form, or to use certain words, or writing prompts, or physical prompts. It tricks my mind into creating again without obsessing over what ideas/emotions may arise. My writing group, The Matrix Collective, has been instrumental for my writing practice. The accountability, care, writing structure, and collective genius help bring me back to the page.

Poet as a young mom (2012)

How do you balance creative practice with care-giving?

For me, they are interwoven–when I’m not at the extreme life ends of birth/death or on a writing retreat.

There are periods of time when creativity takes a backburner to caregiving. When Austen was sick with the illness that would take his life, I was unable to write. Even so, two poems did come out during this time. Even though I wasn’t actively writing (save those two poems), moments were stealthily recorded in the recesses of memory, and poems were forming. After Austen passed and I was ready to listen, the poems poured out.

My writing life has never looked like an ideal writer’s life. When my kids were young, my writing desk was a pull-out desk hidden in a dining-room cabinet; more often, I wrote poems in our family minivan. Until now, my dedicated writing spaces have been in shared multiuse rooms (or vehicles). Now, I write (mostly) at a desk in my son’s old room, which we affectionately call the Auffice.

a peek at Catherine’s writing desk

What’s your creative philosophy and how has it expanded with the addition of caregiving?

My creative philosophy is 1/ to create whenever and however you can. As my kids aged, my practices evolved to meet each moment. Whereas years ago, I’d wake up before them to write, now I write throughout the day. 2/ Writing is cyclical. There are fallow times and fertile times, and both are good and necessary. 3/ The many creative acts that make up any given day feed my writing life rather than detract from it. Whether I’m drawing a mandala, or messing around with papier mâché, or baking a cake, or singing a song–or dancing with the kids when they were young, no creative effort is wasted.

What are some creative milestones you’re looking forward to? Or ones you “missed” due to the both/and aspects of your life?

I’m looking forward to having more stretches of uninterrupted time to write and to create, which I will have all too soon. (My baby is off to college in two years.) I’m working on a nonfiction book, a memoir, which needs deep time and attention. Completing a draft of this manuscript will be a milestone.

When my kids were young, and I wasn’t writing and publishing as much as my peers, sometimes, I felt like I was missing out; but, in truth, there is no missing out. During that time, I was ripening. My timeline is mine. Your timeline is yours. And as long as we are embodied and our faculties are working, we can create. There’s tremendous privilege and freedom in knowing that.

Poet as an older mom (2022)

What has caregiving given you / taken away from you?

Caregiving has given me endless empathy and gratitude. It has worn me to the bone and broken my heart completely open. It’s given me far more than it’s taken–even accounting for the early days of motherhood when sleep and sanity were in short supply–even accounting for the excruciating days of Austen’s illness and passing. Being of service to my kids has done so much for my entire being–and my creative work, my art, is only an extension or an expression of my life and my evolution.

Catherine Esposito Prescott is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Superbloom (Gunpowder Press, 2026) and Accidental Garden (Gunpowder Press, 2023), winner of the 2022 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize. A Best of the Net-nominated poet, Prescott earned an MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry from NYU. Prescott is co-founder of the literary arts nonprofit organization SWWIM and editor-in-chief of the poem-a-day journal SWWIM Every Day. In addition to her work in poetry, Prescott teaches yoga philosophy, facilitates a spiritual book club (Satya Sangha), co-leads yoga and writing retreats (Spark Retreat), and is an affiliate leader for Helping Parents Heal (HPH), a support group for parents with children in spirit. In addition, she and her family raise funds for Team 620, a fund created in her son Austen’s memory, to further brain cancer research, advocacy, and treatment. She lives with her family in Coconut Grove, FL.

You can find Catherine on Instagram @catprescott and on Facebook @ceprescott

Please find Catherine’s books wherever you love to borrow or buy books, including at Gunpowder Press: Superbloom and Accidental Garden. Before a summer hiatus, Catherine is reading for the Wild & Precious Life Series with Lauren Camp and Jami Macarty on May 27 @ 7:30 PM (EDT) (Zoom).

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1. f18 = forever 18, which is how Catherine refers to her son Austen’s age