Pride, Poetry, Possibilities & Pentecost with Marla Taviano

In this episode, we celebrate the season of Pentecost and Pride Month with LGBTQIA+ ally and advocate Marla Taviano. Marla, a writer, poet, and artist, shares her journey of embracing joy and creativity through poetry and mixed media art. She discusses her books, including 'Please Cut Up My Poems,' and highlights the importance of accessible and inclusive art. We also dive into the impact of her teachers, her deconstruction process, and the power of joy as an act of resistance. Join us as we explore themes of love, acceptance, and creativity in this heartwarming and inspiring conversation. Don't miss Marla reading her poem 'It's a Rainbow Day' to celebrate Pride!

Transcript

S6 E17 Pride, Poetry, Possibilities, and Pentecost with Marla Taviano

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: [00:00:00] Welcome to Holy Shenanigans Podcast, where we share stories of the sacred showing up in everyday life as we celebrate the season of Pentecost. Here at HSP, the Holy Spirit shows up and welcomes all peoples. This is a perfect way for us to lean into this Pentecost season with Pride as we celebrate Pride Month.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: This month. At HSP, we are excited to host guests who are allies and or identify as part of the queer community. And this week we welcome LGBTQIA plus ally and advocate Marla Taviano, writer, poet, and fantastic human. We think it was 2023 that you were last here with us talking about your book and your, your collection of books [00:01:00] jaded and that whole series.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: But today we're here to talk about your book. Please cut up my poems. In its title, I had your book sitting on my kitchen table and my spouse walked by and went, what? Cut up the poems?

Marla Taviano: I like to have titles of books that people say what? Like Unbelieve or what makes you fart or. cut my Poems. I mean, you gotta attract 

Marla Taviano: attention, right? You

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: It, it worked. There was a lot of stuff on my, there was a lot of stuff on my kitchen table and it got his attention.

Marla Taviano: I love it. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: before we go in and start cutting up your poems this morning could you tell us a little bit more about yourself and reintroduce yourself to our audience?

Marla Taviano: Yeah, my name is Marla Taviano. My pronouns are she her, and if I put it simply, I like to say that I am a reader, a writer, a lover, and a learner. Words are my thing. If I could read them and write them, I. [00:02:00] Make art with them all day, every day? I would. And to be honest, I actually get to do that, not because my books are such bestsellers that they support me and my family, but I also write and edit for other people for my job from home.

Marla Taviano: So I get to work with words and I feel like that is such a privilege and a blessing to be able to do what I love. Pretty much all day, every day in and out. I, I love my life right now. So I am 49 and a half, almost no, yeah, 49 and a half, and I'll be 50 on Halloween this year. So me coming onto your podcast again is you being so generous to allow me to come on a second time in this quest to be on 50 podcasts.

Marla Taviano: In my 50th year or in 2025, so born in 1975, straddled that century Millennium 2025, and this is podcast interview number [00:03:00] 23. And I'm just really excited to talk to you first of all, and then also talk about poetry and art and cutting it up and pride and, and whatever else we decide to chat about.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Oh, that's, wonderful. So you have a little context, like poetry is really important to me. I was introduced to poetry in fourth grade by Mrs. Hodak. And she did a segment for our, you know, our learning in school on poetry, where we learned about poetry and did a lot of descriptive poetry.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And I've even talked about the story of Mrs. Hodak and my poem about the color red and how it led to me understanding that there was something very special for me. As a form of expression in poetry through that little poem. But how she also embodied this love of poetry that she like defended it and like lifted it up to so many young people.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And when she wasn't teaching school, she was writing poems and creating her own little [00:04:00] chapbooks of her own poetry for years. So when I remember, you know, this teacher, I had a very particular perspective about her because she kind of had old fashioned appearance and old fashioned as like school teacher who wears the blouse with the brooch that's pinned up to the, and the

Marla Taviano: Yep.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: bun on the top of her hair, you know, and a cardigan, a little chain on her glasses.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: But poetry. For her was this whole other universe in her life that through this little window she was trying to let people in and also encourage them to lean into that creative practice. So

Marla Taviano: I ask you if you have had any contact, is she still alive or have you had

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: she has

Marla Taviano: with her? Okay.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: she has passed. I did as I, graduated from high school, I ended up working in a print shop because I loved Words and Art and I thought, oh, working in a print shop, I'll be able to like cut up words and make things out of them. And mostly, and mostly I made business cards However Mrs. Hodak [00:05:00] came into that print shop years later while I was working there

Marla Taviano: my

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: and she came in with her, her son, and she was quite elderly. And she's like, oh my goodness, would you please make me copies of my poetry books? And so I made copies for her that day. I did not have the foresight to ask if I could have

Marla Taviano: Aw.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I'm so sad about that, but, just that I had this bookend experience of seeing this, you know, this teacher who just seemed to have this teacher life,

Marla Taviano: Mm-hmm.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: life was much more diverse , and so many people are, right. We all much more diverse than the one thing we think people see about us.

Marla Taviano: And I, I know this, this whole episode is not gonna be about teachers, but I. I am fascinated by the impact that teachers have on kids that they never know, or maybe sometimes they do get to know. I was a teacher for a very brief window of time. I didn't know what to major in in college. I started out as a nursing major, realized I can't stand [00:06:00] blood.

Marla Taviano: Switched to elementary education, taught for three years, quit to have kids and started writing and never went back, but. In the two full-time school years that I taught, I am still friends with so many of those kids. They will come back and say things to me. They're in their like, heck, they're almost 40 now, probably some of them.

Marla Taviano: And they are telling me. Memories they have from fifth grade, sixth grade, third grade. I can look back and see impact positive and negative the teachers had on me. I'm friends with a couple teachers from elementary school and high school on Facebook. A couple of them have read my books.

Marla Taviano: It's just really it's, it's a really interesting dynamic and I think about too in this country that we're in right now where. Education is being dismantled and destroyed, and teachers are being forced. I don't know. It's a, it's a whole thing, but That's really cool that, that you had a teacher like that in your life who started you down this [00:07:00] path, that, that really, I mean, it, it made a huge impact and, and it changed you.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So you know that I'm a pastor in, in a church in Northwestern Pennsylvania, and I find quite often when I'm getting stuck on what to say or, and don't know, you know, where to go with a message for the week. I go into that area of poetry and just kind of think about the themes.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And a lot of times and even I think too, 'cause I'm in, I'm in a new call right now that I'm just so happy to be in. I've had a resurgence of going into the poetry to like revive that well of what the message is gonna be and oftentimes ends up being part of what I'm preaching on Sunday or part of the liturgy.

Marla Taviano: Yeah, it's like. It helps us access a different part of our brain. And I love that because I'm always thinking about what is in my brain that I have not gotten [00:08:00] to. I haven't untapped, I haven't dug all the way in there. It hasn't found like, and I, I'm so, like, my mind is blown, pun intended about this, like how the brain works.

Marla Taviano: I don't get it. I don't understand. I don't. It doesn't make any sense to me. Even scientifically, if you try to explain all of this stuff about things being in my brain and they can come out, I'll often write poems or I'll wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning and there's a poem in my head and I can write it down fully formed.

Marla Taviano: I don't, I, I don't get it. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I know. And would you mind if I share one that I'm thinking about using for Pentecost?

Marla Taviano: One of mine

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: No, wouldn't mine. Could

Marla Taviano: yeah, yeah, yeah,

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: and then I'll wanna, then I wanna hear all about yours, just because

Marla Taviano: Oh, absolutely. I love hearing people's poetry.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: because I really think that this connects with this whole idea of these fragments, these thoughts, that searching for the right word or the right [00:09:00] way to say it is kind of this search, you know, the search effort.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: But it's, it's beautiful. Anyway, so here it is. Here it is. Broken, open, poured out. What is this moment about receiving rest, giving grace? Where is the mercy of this day? Fragrance flows through the cracks. How is Brokenness bringing love back, soaring high feeling the soul brokenness makes room for the whole messy, strong, soaring stream, pouring passion, evergreen.

Marla Taviano: Oh, I love that I have a special place in my heart for brokenness and fragments and repair and putting that together and making whole, and filling in cracks with gold. 

Marla Taviano: And yes, that's, oh, I love

Marla Taviano: it. I love it. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yes. And it's, and as we think about, you know, so many times folks have had hurt and loss experienced in church [00:10:00] systems. That probably doesn't need to be said, but maybe it doesn't be said. And especially in this month of June where people have experienced loss and brokenness at the hands of organized religion, I think it is so, so, so important, essential for the church to be like, Hey, we apologize

Marla Taviano: Mm-hmm.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: and follow up with.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Actually being like that Pentecost wind that goes everywhere

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: to everyone and loves all people. So I guess it's me on my, my, my preaching today.

Marla Taviano: I love it. I love it.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I have to tell you that one of your poems that you sent me as cut up in your book, please cut up my poems. So like I had it on my shelf for a long time and I didn't even realize that you had left Treasure in here for me.

Marla Taviano: Oh

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: you,

Marla Taviano: yeah, I chuck it in there. Sometimes some like, yeah, let's just

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: that's it. It was, it was great.

Marla Taviano: in the pages. Yeah.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: But I just [00:11:00] love because it's, it's the one that has a little frog and toad. I know folks can't see what we're doing. It's, there you go. You can see 'em. And it's inspo hits like water drops. Because sometimes. We all need encouragement to lean into the creative practice, right?

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Whether it's writing poems or writing sermons or essays or writing that email, you have to write. 

Marla Taviano: Yeah.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So this is the, the poem that you sent me, inspo hits like water drops. I used to think, I thought in Facebook posts while I was standing in the shower, but now I realize they were poems.

Marla Taviano: Yeah. I, as you can tell just by that poem, someone might think, well, that's not really a poem. Yeah, well, it is to me. Like,

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yeah.

Marla Taviano: a, a shirt. An online friend of mine, David, he posted the shirt. I was like, well, I absolutely need that shirt. And I, I wish I would've thought to wear it right now so I could see what it actually says.

Marla Taviano: But it's something [00:12:00] along the lines of, it's in the form of a poem and it says anybody can be a poet. Anybody can write a poem as long as you write in lowercase letters and have enough line breaks, and there's like a break between BR and EAKS. And so it's kind of mocking this, but that's exactly what I tell people and my whole thing.

Marla Taviano: Because you started writing poetry in fourth grade. I have poems in my own handwriting from when I was in first and second grade, and then I'm missing like a whole bunch of my life. I did. I don't have any of those things. I wrote for a really, really long time and then started writing poems again when I was 45.

Marla Taviano: And I, I wanna tell people, listen, poetry can be accessible. I know that you think it's. It goes over your head or you don't get it, or it's too flowery. You have to go get an MFA to to write poetry. Those are all legitimate things. Plus also, you can just take something that you would've put out on [00:13:00] Facebook, like a thought that came into your head in the shower and break it up into little lines.

Marla Taviano: It doesn't have to rhyme. Give it a title, and you have just written. A poem. And now I almost, I mean, I will write longer poems, but my very, very favorite ones are about that length, where it's maybe 15 words, I don't know. And it just says one thing, and it's something that you can remember. You can put on a little Frog and tote illustration.

Marla Taviano: Catch people's eye, their attention, and

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: little frog is gonna go in my office.

Marla Taviano: Speaking of Frog and Tow, they are the ones that got me started on this poem, art Journey. So I had, I started writing the poetry in the beginning of 2021. Self-published unbelief first, first of all in, in September of that year. And I made a lot of mistakes when I was first self-publishing, and I had several copies of my book that were.

Marla Taviano: Of no use to me because they were messed up. And so I was doing a craft day with my [00:14:00] nieces. They were eight and six I think, and I decided, I, I don't know how this popped into my head, but I thought I will cut up some of these poems out of this book that I can't use, and I'll put them on this, these illustrations of this old like ripped up frog and tow book that I, that I have.

Marla Taviano: Because Frog and Toad are so expressive and angsty and like that, the one you have I don't remember what Toad is doing in the story, but he is like pouring like a cup of water kind of on his head. and then I'll find like characters who are actually standing in the shower that I compare that poem with.

Marla Taviano: But I, I started pairing these poems with illustrations that they matched and then I started buying up all the old kids' books I could find at Goodwill and. Yeah, it has just been, so, I have not stopped from August, 2023 till now, and maybe I haven't made poem art every single day, but it's probably five days a week at least, where I am making some kind of art.

Marla Taviano: And I have hundreds and like I've done thousands of them and [00:15:00] I still have hundreds and. Speaking of pride, I'll be at rock Hill Pride here in South Carolina on the 21st of June. This is my third year doing it, but it, the first year was in June. It was right two months before I had started making the poem art, so I didn't have any poem art.

Marla Taviano: But I have my books there. But the big, the big draw is the poem art that I give away for free. So I have poems. I, I try to get like all of my, anything that's remotely queer at all, I'll bring all those poems. So many people that come to the, to our table are from, like you said, toxic religious experiences.

Marla Taviano: They've been hurt by the church. I have poems about that. And then last year I started doing, I just. Type out the words and then cut them up to say the gay agenda and the gay lifestyle. Two things that have been, used to harm the queer community by the the church saying that the gay agenda is evil and making up all these things about it.

Marla Taviano: so I'll have Frog and Toad or Bur and Ernie, both of whom their creators [00:16:00] were gay men who modeled these characters after gay relationships. Or Care Bears or Rainbow Bride or whatever it is. And then I just recently found out that Peppermint Patty and Marcy from Charlie Brown aren't necessarily like Charles Schultz never said that they were gay, but there are, I have some lesbian friends who, these are gay icons for them, so I made some of these.

Marla Taviano: So I'm making all of this art. And just putting it on there, the gay agenda, it's like frog and toed reading a book together. The gay lifestyle care bears sliding down a rainbow and just as a kind of, I don't know, it's it's affirmation celebration, me giving it away. It's maybe even a form of reparations for all of those years that I was an evangelical.

Marla Taviano: Christian and was never quote unquote hateful in my rhetoric. But when you say being gay is a sin and you can't be a Christian and be gay, like all of those things, maybe I didn't mean to sound hateful, but that's hate. [00:17:00] Right? That's so it's just a really fun time. To, to go and say, Hey, here's some free art.

Marla Taviano: And then to see people hold it up, laugh. I've had people like start to cry, bring their friends over, call their friends. You gotta come over here. And it's so, it's, it's just feels, I can't even describe it, so warm and fuzzy in my heart to be able to give back in this way. And I would encourage anyone who has not been to a Pride Parade or a Pride Festival.

Marla Taviano: There is so much love and joy and happiness there. Like I wish it could be year round that we could do this. I guess it makes it more special that it's just in June, but it, it's so much fun.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: it is. Yeah. I'm looking forward to a local event this weekend where I am and helping with their pride event and then so excited because my church is partnering with another church in the community and they're gonna be going and tabling at one the next weekend. So.

Marla Taviano: Yay.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Hey. Just trying [00:18:00] to let people, God loves all y'all, you know?

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: and to be that support for folks. Everybody.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Everybody, 

Marla Taviano: all of us,

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yes. 'cause don't we all need some encouragement?

Marla Taviano: We really, really, really do. Yeah.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And so, I let you know a little bit of the connection of like how poetry came into my life. And you've told us, you know, what inspires you with poetry, art, and all those wonderful things. So you said you started poetry writing when you were in first grade, though, about

Marla Taviano: Yeah, I have poems. There's actually, I don't know that I could find it. I can't find my poems in my books very well, but there is a poem in my book, Unbelieve that is literally a poem I wrote. In 1983, so I was seven and a half. I don't know where it is, but it's something about God loves everyone. God loves the, the sister as much as the brother.

Marla Taviano: He loves the father as much as the mother. your typical rhymes for a kid. It's like these little notepads. It [00:19:00] must have been for my dad on Father's Day from church or something. 'cause it says a note from dad and it has like the church address at the bottom. I guess I, claimed it as my own right.

Marla Taviano: And I wrote poetry on it. So I have some of those and I laminated them a while back so that I could preserve them since they're now like 40 some years old. But yeah, I remember that. I, like I said, I really wish that I had. Kept more from my childhood. I had diaries. I had like so much that I wrote in school.

Marla Taviano: I was chosen to go to a writing conference in fifth grade. Like all I, I've always loved to write. then in high school, I know I wrote some. Some longer poetry that was funny. A about different things. I might have that somewhere. And then I wrote, I was on a family vacation once and I made a limerick about everybody in my family.

Marla Taviano: But then I don't really remember writing any poetry like that from high school until I was 45. And [00:20:00] anytime I get asked, how did this come about, I don't have. An exact answer. I do know that just a couple months ago, I was looking back through Rob Bell's book, everything is Spiritual and I read it in 2021.

Marla Taviano: I write in all the margins, underline, put notes, everything in every nonfiction book that I read. it's easy for me then to go back and find a quote that I'm looking for. 'cause I probably underlined it and started it and put hearts around it. And I was looking for something and I saw in the margins, I think it was April, 2021.

Marla Taviano: I, I had written, that's it. I'm writing poetry like so something, something clicked there. But I do know that I had been trying to write about my deconstruction process. For several years, and I had written so much prose and it just wasn't sitting right with me. Like there was too much to say. I couldn't say it all.

Marla Taviano: I couldn't figure out how to do this. I couldn't make it go linear. I couldn't put it in a book that that [00:21:00] made sense to me. And it's like something clicked like you. You can't say it all, just say less. I have a poem that says, , when everyone's asking you to explain yourself, poetry is an act of resistance.

Marla Taviano: So it's kind of a, maybe like a little bit of a rebellion. Like I'm not gonna explain every single thing to you. I'm not gonna defend every single thing. I'm just gonna say this one thing. Putting the word heretic on the front of my book, so it's Unbelieve. Poems on the journey to becoming a heretic was another thing that I did purposefully because people were calling me a heretic and my response was.

Marla Taviano: Well, the title poem is Unbelieve. If Becoming a Heretic is what I have to do to love people fully and completely, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. And so that's what I wanted people to know. Listen, if me being queer affirming or speaking out against racism, or whatever it is that I'm doing or saying that I don't believe.

Marla Taviano: In an eternal fiery hell that all my Muslim friends are [00:22:00] automatically going to, if that makes me a heretic, sure, I'll take it. I will take that label gladly. I'll put it on myself and I am gonna love people and that's it. And are surprised to find that I, I am, I pretty much have taken the label Christian off of me.

Marla Taviano: I don't necessarily have that label just because I don't. Follow enough of the rules, but people are surprised when I have pastor friends. I'm like, well, you need to understand that there are pastors who lead churches like Pastor Tara, my friend, pastor Trey, pastor Jess, pastor, whoever, and they are loving people just like I am.

Marla Taviano: But they have found a way to do it from the pulpit. Their church without sacrificing that for me, my choice was, yeah, no, I'm not. That sounds like a lot of work and a lot of energy. I think I'm just gonna back away. But that's, how I find. People to be friends with now, not, do you [00:23:00] believe this, this, this, this, and this?

Marla Taviano: Like I do. It's, Hey, do you, do you love people? Do you love everybody? Do you believe that everyone should be free and whole and free to be who they are? And do you believe that sin is more about harming other humans than it is about what word you said or what you do in your bedroom or any of that? So it's just been this.

Marla Taviano: Wide open, freeing thing , I guess that's why I love pride. It's, it's all there. Like, let me celebrate who you are as a whole person, but also the parts that other people told you, you can't be whole unless you get rid of those parts. And I'm saying, yeah, we need all of those parts. So for people who are broken and told, get rid of that part, that part, and that part of you.

Marla Taviano: I'm like, no. Like we'll put all of this back together, like in this beautiful mosaic of something that, yeah, it would've been great if you could have been that all along. Like if no one would've come [00:24:00] along and tried to break you or tried to tell you that piece wasn't acceptable. But I don't, I don't know a lot of people who got through their whole lives unscathed and got to be exactly who they were and, and no one.

Marla Taviano: Bothered them about it, and it doesn't feel like we're getting closer to a, a society and a country where that is possible. But we'll keep fighting, keep fighting with joy, with poems, with art, with celebration, with happiness, with rainbows and colors and parties and, like you're doing, loving people from the pulpit at your church, with your church, with your people.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yeah, I do not take it for granted. The folks that I'm, blessed to work with and the community. That I am part It's definitely been a journey. But I, the another phrase that I love when it comes to speaking up in the name of love is that, you know, love is the greatest of all.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And also joy is an act of resistance. And I have a little Fred Rogers magnet [00:25:00] on my fridge that says, so.

Marla Taviano: I have a book of poetry. J. Drew Lanham is a black man who loves birds and nature and poetry, and his latest book is called Joy, is the Justice we Give Ourselves. So it's a lot about black joy and how. Yes, we live in a place that's unfair and a place that's oppressive and this has been going on forever and it doesn't seem to be letting up.

Marla Taviano: And if we're not gonna get justice from the places we deserve it, we will have joy and we will give that justice to ourselves. We will resist with joy. Subvert things with joy. And I've been talking a lot about arts. Poetry in the midst of where we are right now, specifically as a country. And the tendency to feel like is this a waste of time?

Marla Taviano: Should I be having fun when the world is burning? And like you said, it's joy is resistance. They don't want us to be joyful. They want us to despair. They want us to be [00:26:00] afraid. They want us to turn on each other. They want us to be helpless. And I'm not negating any of the bad things that are happening.

Marla Taviano: And I'm super privileged. Like I said, I, I work from home. I write for a living. I'm not a janitor at McDonald's for 50 hours a week. And and there's so many people really, really hurting and suffering. But anytime we can find pockets of joy in that and ways to. bring joy to other people, which is what I try to do.

Marla Taviano: And I think for those of us who are privileged in the fact that we have some spare time or we have some spare money how can we. Bless other people. And for me right now, that is giving away my art. And that might seem silly. And every once in a while I do think that I'm like, wait a second, this is not a real legit way to give.

Marla Taviano: And then I think, yeah, it actually is like the faces of people when they see it, the [00:27:00] stories that they tell me, they're writing their own poems now. , I've lost count of the people who've started writing poetry. After reading mine, not because of its overwhelming brilliance, but kind of the opposite, where they thought, oh look.

Marla Taviano: Look what she did. Well I can do that. If that's poetry, then sure. I. I can, I can write poetry like that. I have a friend going through a divorce right now and she just got my, please cut up your poems book. And she's an artist, a brilliant artist. So she is painting pictures and then putting the poetry on the pictures.

Marla Taviano: And then also she started like just. Doing her own words now, like instead of of my words. And what's cool about cutting up poems you talk about different, like pieces together, like broken fragments or whatever. There are no rules about cutting up my poetry book. So if you wanna take a line from here and a line from there and make your own [00:28:00] poem, instead of just putting my poem on something, then yay.

Marla Taviano: That's, that's, that's great. I love that you do that.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yes, your, your work reminds me so much. I had a friend that taught me a while ago how to smash book. Where you take books and you cut them up. And she actually was creating these beautiful journals you know taken an old book that wasn't being loved anymore or a 

Marla Taviano: Yeah. Yeah. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: has taken off the shelf.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And I learned how to, you know, use an exacto to cut in to make like a little window in there or to. Pocket or and then I took that idea and I went and visited some students that were young parents. And we created little journals out of these old books that they could use for their own purposes or if they wanted to make that their, their baby book, you know, that way they didn't have to go and buy something that was prefab.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: They could customize it. So [00:29:00] this kind of mixed media. Art. And I really feel like it is a way to take the distance away that sometimes people feel about poetry or art, that they feel something so far away from them, or it's for folks who have more time or resources or whatever. Right.

Marla Taviano: Yeah, and what I do when you're talking about books that have been unloved or discarded, , my library will have books that have either been damaged or they have too many copies, and they'll sell them for a quarter each, or five for a dollar and magazines and that. There's also a metaphor there where you're taking things that are unloved, discarded.

Marla Taviano: Nobody wants them. They're not good anymore. And you're giving them new life, like I'm putting them out there and, and now people are seeing these illustrations. They're, yeah, it's just breathing new life into these things and being scrappy. I don't have a lot of extra money, but I don't need money for the art that I do.

Marla Taviano: I can find books for really cheap laminating [00:30:00] sheets and glue sticks are the main thing that I spend my money on and. Yeah, so it's super accessible financially too. And I've done several events, like a poem Art Party, or I did I took my poem Art to an adult book fair that my friend Taylor, she has an organization called Liberation is Lit.

Marla Taviano: She was doing an adult book fair, which I think is so fun, and then ask me if I'd have a poem, art station, and yeah, it's just so much fun to see. What people create, what they come up with. And I, I love it. And it goes back to my childhood. I used to do this as a kid. I loved cutting things up, making books.

Marla Taviano: I would make collages for my boyfriends. They probably thought they were ridiculous. I'm like cutting all these phrases out of magazines. Who knows what, who, like I would kill for some, like to have one of those back, a collage that I made for a boyfriend, but. [00:31:00] Oh, well,

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: We'll go searching. We'll go

Marla Taviano: yeah, 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Hey,

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: hand it. 

Marla Taviano: out. Hey, anybody in the nineties did Marla make you?

Marla Taviano: Actually, actually, one of my friends who's not a boyfriend, but my friend Chad from high school just a few months ago sent me a DM on Facebook, and it was a photo. He said it was my parents were moving and they were cleaning out their whatever. And he found this picture frame that. Everybody called me Mars in high school.

Marla Taviano: And so it said like to Chad love Mars. And it had photos of, of our friend group or whatever, and I had framed it. I made one for each of my friends. So I graduated from high school in 1994, so he had this for over 30 years. And I said, you're not gonna get rid of it, are you? Was like, never. So some of my friends do have things out in the world.

Marla Taviano: Another friend on Facebook, just last week, this broke my heart, but also I was so happy too. [00:32:00] She put on Facebook that her, her younger brother had died. I can't remember. It was like 33 years ago or something. And so this happened when we were in high school. And I told her on her post, like I remember that day.

Marla Taviano: I remember finding out and like how heartbroken we were and she said to me, you wrote me the most beautiful handmade card and I still have it. I was like, whoa, that, that really, I don't know, just really touched me that you never know. Like sometimes I might write something to someone, send something to someone.

Marla Taviano: Maybe they throw the poem art away when they're cleaning things out, but maybe 40 years later they find my poem and they're like, Marla gave this to me and it really means something to me. So you never know. And that's what I love about words. They can I. stand the test of time. They could be there for a long time, which is why I wanna be careful going forward about the words that I use, the [00:33:00] words that I'm putting out into the world.

Marla Taviano: I've written books that I, I'm not super happy that those words are still out there, that they're, they're in the world, but I can't change that. But going forward, I can

Marla Taviano: choose words that uplift and encourage.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yeah. And that was gonna be my question. What's your, Holy Shenanigans story, but you've given us so many beautiful examples

Marla Taviano: Well, I do, I do have one that stands out because I was just talking about that art fair and The people that came and sat down were just so diverse in age and every, like, it was so cool. But there was one person who they were disabled and trans and they came with , an older, like I said, older woman, a woman probably my age.

Marla Taviano: So this, this person was probably 20 something early twenties, maybe 21. And then someone my age and we talked a little while they were there as they're making, I mean, something gorgeous like my art, the extent of it is. I am going to cut out [00:34:00] words and glue them on an illustration Someone else drew.

Marla Taviano: that's it. But this person was making something really, really beautiful and really complex, and they didn't finish it. But they put all the pieces together in this little book and they were gonna take it home and work on it. But they were talking, the woman with them was talking and it's just telling some of their story about how their parents had kicked them outta the house and this woman had become chosen family.

Marla Taviano: And then the woman later, like I think that later that night or the next day, sent me a DM and said, I don't know how to express to you what this meant. To my friends. Just being able to be creative and make something, and be heard and be seen and all of that. Like, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Marla Taviano: I didn't do anything. brought some magazines and some glue and some scissors and just sat there, and yet it was this holy life changing moment [00:35:00] for. Three people for someone who had suffered trauma, for someone who had come alongside and helped, and for me, who just got lucky and got to be there to be a part of it and to be plopped into their story for a minute.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I, I think that we can these, these sacred moments in life often are when we just set the table right for somebody

Marla Taviano: literally what I said 

Marla Taviano: and am like the worst hostess. I don't do dinner parties, I don't cook things, I don't whatever. But you just set it okay. That that was just a light bulb. I'm writing this down. Set the table because you know what I can do is set the, set the poem art station table. That is I am, I have got that down like that.

Marla Taviano: So you know what? you have a gift somewhere else. Set this kind of table set, this kind of table set, this kind of table. There are no rules about place [00:36:00] settings and it doesn't even have to be food or anything like that. It's set the table. Okay. Thank you. Bless you. That was 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: It's something , I've been thinking about. 'cause how many times when I'm either listening to these holy shenanigans stories or telling some, it's about nurturing and caring for another person. You know, I, I think about different people in my life, like Mrs.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Hodak, who set the table for me to be introduced to poetry and to learn that like what a sacred deep well it is was for her and it is for me. That's a part of that gift given and then shared. That's a part of that broken open and poured out that I shared 

Marla Taviano: Yeah. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: you earlier. Right.

Marla Taviano: And she took something that she loved, like she was sharing what she loved. She was modeling what she was passionate about, and that in turn did what it did for you. that's another [00:37:00] thing for a long time, I'm always talking about this. I was in so many ministries and so many volunteer things at church, and so many things I did not love.

Marla Taviano: Like I said, I didn't want to cook. A meal. I did not want to volunteer in the church nursery. I didn't want to sing in the choir. All of these things that I did, I wanted to set the poem art station table. . That's what I wanted to do. So that we don't ever sacrifice or give something in some other way.

Marla Taviano: I'm not saying that. But I have found that the joy just multiplies when you're serving others in a way that already brings you so much joy. Like when I sit at my own table by myself doing this, I'm already filled up with joy. Then to extend that to you and share my joy with you, then to watch you fill up with joy doing that, I mean that's like just. That's what makes me fart. That's the title of another one. One of my, and that's what that definition is. It's like, well, where, [00:38:00] what is it that makes me come alive? What is it that makes things bubble up inside of me? Like literally physically bubble up inside of me because it feels so good. Whether that's butterflies, whether that's gas bubbles, whether it's a pounding of my heart in a really good way.

Marla Taviano: Finding that is. I mean, it's such a gift, and that's what I want for people. I want them to find something that they love as much as I love. Reading and writing and making poem art. I don't want everybody to do the exact same thing I do. And I think that's a problem in, a lot of Christianity, is trying to make people, this is what you have to do.

Marla Taviano: You need to read your Bible every morning. You need to pray like this. You need to act like this. You need to go here and say this and do this and do that. No, just whatever it is that. fills you up and makes you come alive. I mean, Howard Thurman, I forget the quote, but something about the world needs more [00:39:00] people who have come alive.

Marla Taviano: Like that's whatever it is for you that makes you come alive. That's gonna be your gift to the world.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yes. And it is, and I am, so thankful for the gifts that you bring to the world, Marla,

Marla Taviano: Thank you.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: through,

Marla Taviano: Ditto. Ditto.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And I was wondering, so. Something that I try to do every June, even though, you know, we celebrate Pride 365 days a year, just that. But June there is a special emphasis on it. So I love to take pictures of things and create posts on social media that have the hashtag June Rainbows.

Marla Taviano: Ah, love it.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And so I invite people to, if you see, you know, evidence of joy and pride and celebrating the queer community, or you wanna celebrate, you know, seeing a rainbow somewhere or seeing something that brings out that aliveness, that joy in your life, you know, take a picture of it or write a poem about it.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Take a picture of it, [00:40:00] post it to your socials and just use the hashtag June Rainbows.

Marla Taviano: Love it. Wrote it down. Got it.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: you, and I think it would be just so perfect if as I was looking through your book at the end of it, there is a poem called, it's a Rainbow Day

Marla Taviano: Ah yes. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So I was wondering, Marla, if you would do us the favor of reading us. It's a Rainbow Day as a way of celebrating this pride and more June Rainbows.

Marla Taviano: Absolutely. It's a rainbow day. Today is a great day to celebrate every delightful human on the LGBTQIA plus spectrum and beyond. You are wonderful and beautiful. And loved and I will fight to make sure you have every single right you want, need, and deserve, especially the right to be who you are. I love you.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: That's beautiful. It is a rainbow day today, every day of June and every day of the year. Thank you, [00:41:00] Marla, for everything you bring to the world. The joy, the what do they call it? viriditas, which means greenness. 

Marla Taviano: I love it. Love it. Thank you so much, Tara. I love, love chatting with you.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I love talking with you too. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our folks today?

Marla Taviano: Yeah, they can buy my books. I have Unbelieve, jaded and Whole is a poetry trilogy published by Lake Drive books. Those are available wherever you buy books. my other books, please cut out my poems. And then I have one called Poem Art Therapy, which is all, it's the same idea, but it's poems about divorce and infidelity.

Marla Taviano: And then what makes you fart is my only book, that's not poetry, it's prose, and it's all about exploring your passion. I did a limited edition book for the first time. It's called Mouth, and it's a four by six book it's a fun book about. quote unquote bad words and how I'm reclaiming them.

Marla Taviano: And then my most [00:42:00] recent one that's not out yet is actually called Poem Art Party. And it is a book for kids to cut up poems because in, please cut up my poems. There is some adult language. Not a lot, but some, and a friend of a friend. Bought the book and was having a little poem, art Party with her 9-year-old.

Marla Taviano: And so whenever the 9-year-old got to a word in the book that she wasn't allowed to say, she just cut it up with her scissors. But this poem, art Party is specifically for kids. And I have, I think 40, 40 poems in there written by kids, like contributed by kids, and then some that I've written. And that is going to be a safe book that the kids can take and cut up and do poem parties with.

Marla Taviano: A couple libraries locally here have asked me to do poem parties this summer. So I'll have that book ready. So yeah, if people wanna buy my books and then I write on substack marla [00:43:00] Taviano.substack.com sometimes a new poem each week or just whatever's on my mind. This week's post is called. The gay agenda and so I shared some of my gay agenda art.

Marla Taviano: then yeah, I hang out mostly on Instagram and Threads at Marla Taviano and I'm always excited to meet new people. I love meeting people who say, I heard you on this podcast. I heard you on Holy Shenanigans podcast, and I'd like to say hi, or I wanna write a poem, or whatever, whatever that is. So, yeah.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Thank you. Thank you so much. Hi, am your Holy Shenanigans muse. Tara Lamont Eastman. Thank you for joining us for Holy Shenanigans. That surprise, encourage, redirect, and turn life upside down all in the name of love. This is an unpredictable spiritual adventure that is always sacred, but never stuffy.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Thanks to Ian Eastman for sound production, and to you, Marla, for being here with us today. If you would like to be a sponsor of Holy Shenanigans [00:44:00] Podcast, you can help with production costs by giving@www.buy me a coffee.com/tara l Eastman. Until next time, beloveds, may you be well.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: May you be at peace, and may you live with abundant joy and pride.

Marla Taviano: I wanna jump in really quickly. This is not what you're supposed to do at the end of someone's podcast, but I wanna apologize for calling you Tara instead of Tara, because I knew that your name was Tara. And people mispronounce my name all the time. I usually get Maria. And so in the spirit of making amends and calling people what they would like to be called.

Marla Taviano: I apologize, Tara, and Thank you so much, for this beautiful conversation and happy pride.