Community Tributes to Claudia Whittingham
L.E.T.G.O. Poetry Workshop: A Tribute to Claudia Whittingham by Sandrine Dupiton
The irony. I am not necessarily the best at letting things go. However, 15 years ago, I felt called to lead a workshop entirely focused on exploring the transformative power of doing so. They say, “create what you need,” so I did. Claudia Nicole Whittingham, champion of dopeness, of grace, of magic, and I were introduced online a few years before through a mutual friend, Ranique, who thought we should know each other since we were both educators, and Claudia could likely support the program for young women I was leading in Philadelphia, where we were both living at the time. Oh, and we just so happened to also be birthday twins — July 13th! Three years later, both of us now in New York, she’d reached out about signing up for L.E.T. G.O.: an experiential poetry workshop — a space for creative healing, contemplation and spiritual life coaching as much as it was a poetry writing workshop. I was thrilled.
She was incredible throughout the experience and at some point toward the close of the sessions, I even let her lead one. At our closing community showcase, Claudia, who moved like fire and felt like water, danced around the room: her performance of choreopoems was a reflection of her indomitable spirit, penetrating clarity, courageous vulnerability, creative depth, whimsical joy — her brilliance.
Her sheer ability to get people hyped in a room — the cacophony of energy was balanced by the stillness she shared moments before — the both-and-ness of her light should be studied. I can feel it all in those pictures, as I look back. I see it in my face. I loved her real real bad and I know that she knew it.
Thirteen years later she called me from a hospital to pray for and with her. An inner circle friend, a cosmic twin through and through, we were each others’ spiritual teachers in the way the wise ancestor bell hooks describes loving — we extended ourselves to nurture each others’ spiritual growth. She was a crowned Oshun priestess whose evolution I witnessed and whose wisdom I admired. I was honored that she called me. I completely believed in a full recovery. I needed to.
The following spring, I was honored again to lead in facilitating a unique restorative memorial experience with a room filled with people supporting our beloved’s work: attempting to find comfort in the aftermath of loss. A year later, honored again, when Carolyn asked me to write this tribute in African Voices Magazine, the institution where our friendship was forged. Being a year removed from the initial persistent pangs of undulating shockwaves of a close friend, my first friend, joining the ancestors.
The heart work it would require was its own revelation — the uncomfortable quiet of remembering; the bouldering gravity of grief; the heightened awareness of the tender intimacy of allowing a person, otherwise a stranger, to touch my emotional core; rattling it in a way that I have never experienced. Being still enough to learn what my heart, my shy soul, might want to express on a page is the work I did not know I needed. What is crystal clear is: in the same space of the grief of not being able to talk to her or ask her so many things about so many of all the things, I am buoyed by the precious treasure of loving such a person for the time that I got to.
Now no birthday will ever be the same — that is true. And what is also true, I kid you not, in this emotionally challenging space of gathering her poetic artifacts and my thoughts, a few nights ago, in a dream, her hair red and pulled up, she came to me excitedly talking about our next birthday. So dope.
A love that transcends is a love that lets go: lets go of tears dammed and shuttered away (tears were something you wrote about often in your poems during L.E.T. G.O.); lets go of numbing emotions too closely tied to the frays of loss; allows grief to do its work on a heart not well practiced in losing someone so close, so meaningful — an invitation to open to love more fearlessly and with deeper gratitude.
This process of recording a written tribute has allowed me to face your passing as if for the first time: quietly with words as a bridge between realms. My teacher from beyond. I understand even more potently, the quiet power and unique gift Ms. Claudia Nicole Whittingham was, is.
Fire Cycle: “Fire is” & #8
Fire is
life’s spark
burning trauma
into
wisdom,
squeezing diamonds
from coal.
#8
The first impulse of loss
is to go haywire.
Shed flesh in
molten volcanoes
of anger
give birth to thunder
birthed in the back of my throat
spread my words like lightning
stretch mortality to
the very edge of sanity.
I have been to that place…..
more than once.
The balm of innocence
saving me from growing old
hoarding memories to my bones
adding wrinkles to each kiss
of life.
I have grown tired
of gaining through loss
I have grown tired of carrying the weight
of words lost
in the abyss
of going haywire.
My first impulse is
to run like lava
out of an urban volcano
take up razor blades
in my mouth
and spit words of wisdom
honed on the sharp edge
of a dull razor.
My first impulse is to curse
in shades
so deep
Olokkun
will raise up into my mouth
searching for his children
amongst the food
caught in between
my teeth.
WATER CYCLE: Found Poem (class) & Dance Poem
Found poem (class)
Is it really worth your freedom in the ocean?
For me, the sun is an illusion.
You may think you know my depths
but there are parts of me
where even light dares not go.
I will cradle you in
waves of salt.
Pulling you further into me.
I ask for nothing but the chance
to embrace all of you.
With me your tears
return to their source
and your laughter becomes
the song of mermaids
I will weave your hair
into spells cast long ago
and adorn your lips
with dreams you
have forgotten.
Remember when traveling
Stay close to your bag.
Yes, I know its weight
can be too much
and its contents seem like a mystery.
Dance Poem
I know you’re tired
and hiding from
whatever you think is going
to happen next…
still not trusting…
But, pulling your head forward
while your heart/my heart
caves in
will not protect you
or stop its beat from echoing
the sound of the drums
my feet crave…
Awaken
to what I feel when
I dance
my skin becoming
the mouth of so many rivers of salt
stored beyond the reach of my eyes..
Tears will not suffice
or cancel the innocence of your smile,
shining with every flourish of your
white skirt
cradling a snake
yearning to shed its skin.
Awaken
to ancient voices
so old I can only feel them
in movements.
I am here.
When my feet connect
to my heart
and the weight of every footprint
disappears…
Have you forgotten
that I have been here
since before you realized that
the sound of the water that rushed
to your ears,
every pore of your being,
would be echoed
in the ocean
that has called you more than once
to remember…
I am here.
– Written by Claudia Whittingham