Joy Waller: Legend of Poems and Mysticism
Joy leads us on a mystical journey through thin places, magical backstreets, tarot, mysticism, poetry, grief and death. day jobs and other jobs. (wait for the ferry story)
There are multi-swears and adult themes in this conversation so please be mindful of who you are listening with. Grandma will love it but your kids…
Joy read two of her poems for us - her poetry is like Shibuya at night; all of it. Neon, concrete, streets, softness, sex, longing, eros, grime and stubble. Her inaugural book of poems Pause::Heartbeat is a visceral trip through Tokyo humanity, pleasure, longing and self. When I first read it I was stunned; 4 years ago, it brought me back to those days of grime, risk, and physicality of being young. The tawdry tales of a life lived fully in the light and dark.
Joy is generous in talking about sobriety and it’s always such a deeply satisfying experience talking frankly with other sober people. Each tale is different but there’s a sameness. There are echoes that reach out into each experience. Her descriptions of the spirals into alcohol dependence, the root of vortices and path to recovery are deeply evocative.
Evocative is a notion that comes up a lot in our conversation and Joy’s words cracked Sarah open, gave her chills, surfaced tears and allowed her to explore what it might be like to feel good every day.
Joy is Sarah’s sempai; her senior or mentor in terms of sobriety, and you can hear in the conversation the high context that happens between two people who have similarly overcome a destructive spiral with alcohol. There are unwritten and unspoken knowings about what remaining sober is and you can feel it in the texture of this conversation. While Sarah is 10 years Joy’s senior, Joy is most certainly ahead of her in the unfolding of alcohol-freedom. Speaking with Joy feels like and evocation. This works on many levels.
There’s poetry in the lilt of the back and forth in our conversation, we explore many places on human existence; the outer world, the unseen world and the inner world. And spirals.
The symbolism in everything. Tarot and its mathematics; its symbols and the card that Joy connects with regularly.
Joy is powerful. There’s a quiet optimism and kindness in her being. Getting over disappointment transmute - she loves reading aloud
Her poetry reading makes me cry
We speak to nostalgia and the erotic; listen to the end to find out about sexy time on a ferry and the French foreign legion; to betrayals that crack open the most creative places and had Joy demand of herself that she doesn’t edit and goes all in on her writing and her poetry.
It felt sacred, this conversation. And practical; Joy has a day job that supports her art and Sarah is of course irreverent about manifesting. No surprises there!
In this episode discover:
- Gorgeous old-school language and words; be astonished
- Which previous Legends Podcast guest we honour for their emotional fullness
- Alcohol’s impact on Joy’s ability to create and what sobriety did for her writing
- Tarot, symbolism, poetry and
- A love story that lasted a lifetime and ended in bereavement
If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.
About Joy
Joy Waller was raised in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada and spent her young adulthood on Vancouver Island. She currently resides in Tokyo, Japan, where she serves as an editor at the Tokyo Poetry Journal and co-hosts the long-standing open mic series Drunk Poets See God. Her fiction & poetry have appeared in numerous publications, including Best Canadian Stories 2021, and her poetry collection Pause :: Heartbeat was released in 2019. Her next collection, Cosmic Nervosa, is scheduled for release this spring through Moon Hotel Press, an indie press she has recently launched with her partner and their two cats. She draws inspiration for her creative work — and creative life — from the Tarot, various neon portals in Tokyo, the Beat Generation, nature spirits, and her own esoteric mind, which is incapable of perceiving the world as anything other than pure symbolism. Weaknesses: coffee, techno, The Twilight Zone. Visit www.joywaller.com for more info.
Connect with Joy
IG: Joyous.Waller
www.moonhotelpress.com (coming soon)
Joy’s book: https://www.topojo.com/product-page/pause-heartbeat
Connect with Sarah
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sarah-furuya-creative
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahfuruyacreative/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahfuruyacreative
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXsuS_yVT9fMHjhAylVy8-w
