Can’t tell you how happy I am to write these lines.

As life is life, its rollercoaster took me on a wild ride. Its endless cycles of evolution might feel tiring, as complex to make sense out of as a free-jazz solo, and as violent as the tenderness it aims, you know Summertime is waiting around the corner.

Life’s rollercoaster also brought a pleasant new chapter to our story—the marks the dancing Cloud left last time we met are now living on our city’s walls, waiting for us to meet the wake-up call our poem screamed that day…

You might find them on your city walls as part of the paste-up and stencil street art pieces hanging around. Look out for a handwritten short poem or some | brain|flowers | nearby.
If you do find them, please share them on social media and tag me! If not, I share a few of them on Instagram, Farcaster, and Zora!

Now, back to our getaway…

I heard the First Lady of Song is singing a summertime lullaby by our side today, and all we have to keep in thought is MIND|YOUR|MIND.

|| FROM POETRY TO THE STORY ||

Last time we met, a cloud brought a new || quest of blue || on Earth. As its song reached the minds, every living soul heard a poem scream in their thoughts. Our narrator experienced something drastically different: an electrifying wake-up call that left her with a poem tattooed on her skin…and a very disturbing dream.

As the dream faded in her mind, she heard a song reaching her thoughts from afar…it whispered something that felt like another wake-up call:

“Can you feel the light inside? Can you feel that fire?”*

She opened her eyes about an inch, unsure where or who she was, or if she was still alive. Through her blurry vision, she felt the world she had always known: the same shape, yet...a different vibe.

She was in a crumbling somewhere she didn’t recognise, lying on the floor, in front of a colourful block—a strange wall with splashes of words that looked like short poems and a bunch of brains forming an odd flower.

Then, something strange that sounded like a poem took over her thoughts as she felt clouds dancing in her mind:

“One of these mornings
You’re gonna rise up singing
You’re gonna spread your wings
and take to the sky”**

and, with music in mind and poetry at heart, here came Ella.

*from the song “St. Chroma” by Tyler, The Creator
**from the song “Summertime” by Ira and George Gershwin & DuBose Heyward

Your call!
Wait...what?
I’m not sure my cloud understood what just happened...what about you?
In your opinion, what does || here comes Ella || mean about our story?
CLICK HERE to share your thoughts with us.

I’ll share a few answers in the next issue!

|| INTO THE MUSIC: ELLA FITZGERALD’S “SUMMERTIME” ||

“Summertime” has a special place in my personal story, and, long story short, I ended up writing a short presentation about it when I was in high school (in French) back in 2008—one I’d like to share with you in its | uncut | translated version :

“Born in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of New York, it was after his parents bought a piano for his brother, Ira Gershwin, that George Gershwin learned to play the instrument, which would later become his tool for creation. George’s first successes were composed for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, for whom he wrote the piece” Rhapsody in Blue” in just three weeks. The following compositions elevated George into the ranks of the great composers of his time. Nevertheless, one piece did not receive the recognition it deserved upon its debut:” Porgy and Bess”. Composed by the Gershwin brothers and DuBose Heyward, this opera is based on the novella” Porgy” (written by DuBose Heyward) and on the play of the same name co-written by DuBose and his wife, Dorothy. Starting in the 1930s, this opera, which tells the story of Porgy, a disabled Black man living in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina, who tries to save Bess from the dangers surrounding her, achieved the worldwide success we know today. One piece from the opera stood out from the rest:” Summertime”. Widely known, the flagship song of” Porgy and Bess” is likely to be the most covered song of all time, with approximately 2,600 recordings. Appearing four times throughout the opera,” Summertime” first serves as a lullaby, then resurfaces at various moments in the story, as if it had been given the function of a connecting thread.”

In our story, Ella Fitzergerald’s version at Mister Kelly’s took over our narrator’s mind. In what first appears as a very classic rendition of the song, the First Lady of Song takes the crow by surprise by turning it into a swinging and quite ironic lecture on its summer vibe.

Keeping in mind the place “Summertime” in the “Porgy and Bess” opera, Ella Fitzgerald once again proves she’s the First Lady of Song. With that in mind, do we even need to introduce the legend she is? If yes, I’ll mention that the woman took her craft to the state of art with her mastery of improvised scat singing, and, 25 years after her passing, she remains an ultimate icon for most singers.

|| MUSIC BRAIN FUN FACT ||

I came across news that will make every baby (and parent!) on Earth happy:

listening to music may reduce their pain during jabs or heel-prick tests…<

but is it enough to change the pain management game?

Check out The Guardian for more insight on this.

|| CHASSOL — INTERVIEW FOR | WORDSTOBEMUSIC | ||

The Cully Jazz had a super great surprise in store this year: during a visit for the making of | wordstobemusic | vol.4 dropping later this year, the festival organised us a 30 minute interview with French artist Chassol—one I’m very happy to share with you today as part of my | uncut | interview series.

Press play to fall in love with the roughness of the uncut recording ;)
The interview is available to listen to and collect in its original French version.
The English transcript is available on my website.

Stay tuned for | wordstobemusic | vol.4 dropping by the end of 2025:
Chassol's performance inspired us poetry, and a fine getaway.

Last December, I dropped the print edition of | wordstobemusic |, featuring its first 3 volumes, and I wanted to thank everyone who bought it for the love and the fantastic feedback you gave me.

Want to order your copy of | wordstobemusic | vol. 1 - 3 print edition?

Click here to order the French print edition
Click here to order the English print edition

For all my web3 lovers, vol.1, vol.2, and vol.3 are here for you.

|| WHAT THE STORY INSPIRED YOU ||

Following || quest of blue ||, someone shared a really delicate thought:

“For me, the poetry speaks of the constant tug between creating from the heart and hoping the world can read your heart. So one adjusts or gives up. Unless the cloud is content to float away into obscurity.”

If you recognise yourself, please say hi, I didn’t see your name on the form

|| OUR COMMUNITY’S RISES ||

Leon Faesulis recently dropped “In Love’s Debris” on Foundation, delivering a delicate and powerful poem. I highly recommend you check out his work—I’m sure it’ll match your cloud.

|| CONTEST ||

Thank you, Ben Westerham, for sharing Paul Weller’s Broken Stones—it inspired me to write a short poem I’m looking forward to sharing with you as soon as I get the time to finish its visuals.

It’s time to get a chance to win some NFT poetry!
CLICK HERE to suggest an album or a song!

In the next post, I’ll share a poem inspired by a piece of music you submitted {chosen by drawing lot}. The winner will win the 1/1 NFT poem.
The trick? If the album or song doesn’t inspire me, there’s nothing to win.

After all, our relationship to music is subjective, isn’t it ;)?

|| THANK YOU! ||

Thank you for reading!

I hope this little getaway put a smile on your heart!

If you'd like to support the project, subscribe to this newsletter, collect this post, | wordstobemusic | vol.1, vol.2, and vol.3, the print French or English edition or any of my other works.

‘Till next unexpected cloud!

☁ ✒
S.

I’m more than beyond happy to meet you here again!

The past months felt like a real-life rollercoaster, and writing these lines feels like a new beginning. With new beginnings come change, and a refreshing one concerning our newsletter: its frequency.

As for now, I will let my creativity lead the way and not a monthly deadline—meaning the newsletter’s following issues will drop when a new part of the story is ready to be shared.

Doesn’t it feel like our getaway just became the delicious cookies a friend surprises you with on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the park?

Cookies taste better with music, don’t they?
Find all the songs we explore in this newsletter in its dedicated playlist!
CLICK HERE and make sure you save it in your library!

Now, back to our getaway…
I heard one of history’s most badass voices leads the path today…

|| FROM POETRY TO THE STORY ||

The last time we met, every living soul fell asleep after a strange event occurred, and our narrator was dreaming about society’s past.

As we meet today, we discover our narrator’s dreams are more than dreams—some looked like flashbacks of something long forgotten: hope.

Among them, a dream showed a cloud crossing the universe to reach Earth. It was flying peacefully in a delicate dance with smiling eyes as Janis Joplin’s voice was weaving “Kozmic Blues” from a place that seemed buried far away in the sky.

When our narrator heard that song, a fierce electric wave swept every inch of the sleeping body.

It felt like a wake-up call.

Then, as the electric wave vanished, a few sentences appeared on the skin—as if a poem suddenly tattooed itself on the body:

Your call!
What does it tell us about our story?
What does this dream mean? And what about that dancing cloud?
CLICK HERE to share your craziest thoughts.

I’ll share the best and funniest answers in the next issue!

|| INTO THE MUSIC: JANIS JOPLIN’S “KOZMIC BLUES” ||

As a whole, Janis Joplin is the definition of a liberation statement—a fierce voice in a fierce body, personifying the rejection of what society expects a woman to be. Born an outsider in the early 40s, Janis Joplin didn’t settle for the perfect Texan housewife role life foreordained her. Following her urge to sing her heart out to express what was burning her guts, she embraced her own revolution, where she embodied her masculinity as strongly as she allowed her power, sensuality, and vulnerability to fill up every room she set foot in.

Yet, Joplin served as an unconscious feminist symbol, living on her own terms and calling out the young generation to question presumptions. She was oblivious to the feminist movement, as she was to most activism of her time. When asked about the women’s liberation movement resenting her, she said: “You are what you settle for. If they settle for being somebody’s dishwasher, that’s their own f—king problem. If you don’t settle for that and you keep fighting it, you know, you’ll end up anything you want to be. I’m just doing what I wanted to and what feels right and not settling for bullshit, and it worked.”

Gifted with a unique electric stage aura, Janis Joplin is widely renowned for her role in the rock scene. Yet, her guts call her a blues singer. She fell in love with the genre when she was about 14 years old, discovering the voices of legends such as Bessie Smith or Ma Rainey. With a voice like you’ve rarely met before, there’s no doubt she’s the heiress of the queen of the blues era—she’s the blues of her time, in every song she sings, whether a rock one, a folk one, or a traditional blues.

“Kozmic Blues” is one of the two songs she wrote for “Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!”, her debut solo album released in 1969 after she left her former band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the only solo one she released during her lifetime. “Kozmic Blues,” as well as the other tunes on the album, marks her new harmonic adventure. Here, in contrast to her previous psychedelic rock records, Janis Joplin dedicates her full artistry to soul and blues—taking her path to the music she first fell in love with as a teenager.

Janis Joplin passed away from a heroin overdose in 1970, soon after completing the recording of “Pearl,” her second solo album, and joined the infamous “27 Club”. With a fierce will to live her own definition of freedom, unmatched artistry, and without even trying to be one, Janis Joplin became the legend she is—the very first woman rock’n’roll superstar who led the way for women to take a new spot in the rock scene.

|| BRAIN FUN FACT ||

Music has many benefits for human beings. With every issue of our getaway comes a new fun fact and a resource to learn more about it:

Are we about to throw out our painkillers?
Rumor has it that moving music may reduce pain.

Researchers from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, released their impressive conclusion.
Find the complete study on Frontiers in Pain Research’s website or a summary on The Guardian’s.

|| | WORDSTOBEMUSIC | VOL.2 ||

Last Summer, | wordstobemusic | vol.2 dropped featuring 25 poems created while I was immersed in and inspired by live music performances. Among them, in a tiny venue called “Au Raisin”, Rachel Croft inspired me || muddy sweetness || as she gave a very touching solo performance.

A few hours before her show, I had the chance to chat with the British singer-songwriter—an interview I’m more than delighted to share with you today!

Press play to fall in love with Rachel Croft's authenticity.

Grab your edition of | wordstobemusic | vol.2 to discover who inspired those 25 poems.

|| WHAT THE STORY INSPIRED YOU ||

Following || life beat ||, our getaway first issue, Arjan Tupan shared his thoughts on what our narrator saw in the dreams, and I must admit I kinda want to live it! Here are the few lines Arjan shared with us:

“She found herself at a now-defunct jazz festival in Maastricht, The Netherlands, where she saw Nina Simone perform and Miles Davis. James Brown and Art Blakey. And Phil Collins had a big band, within the smaller rooms of the venue, everything else, from upcoming niche artists to the local music school students’ jazz band. It was a different time, then, a time of promise, a time just after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. A time during which the music reflected the positivity and promise that seemed to permeate every fiber of the universe and was thought to last forever.”

|| OUR COMMUNITY RISES ||

When Miss MacD shared "The Black Boulevard" video poem, I instantly connected with it. I mean, whenever there’s music involved, I’m all in!

|| CONTEST ||

The drawing lot has spoken and chosen Arjan Tupan! He submitted a song that I absolutely love, Arrested Development's Mr Wendal. I spent hours dancing on it, but no poem popped up in my mind. It's funny how music works its magic, isn't it? Maybe next time ;)

It’s time to get a chance to win some NFT poetry! CLICK HERE to suggest an album or a song!

In the next post, I’ll share a poem inspired by a piece of music you submitted {chosen by drawing lot}. The winner will win the 1/1 NFT poem.
The trick? If the album or song doesn’t inspire me anything, there’s nothing to win.

After all, our relationship to music is subjective, isn’t it ;)?

|| THANK YOU! ||

Thank you for reading! 

I hope this little getaway put a smile on your heart!

If you'd like to support the project, you can subscribe to this newsletter, collect this post, | wordstobemusic | vol.2, or any of my other works.

☁✒


S.

I can’t find the words to express how thrilled I am to start sharing the making of a project I’ve been dreaming about since I was a child: my first novel!

The storyline is almost done, and a few chapters’ bits are ready: our road until publishing day will be veeeeery long.
But I will ensure it’ll be one of the best you’ve traveled on.

Our road, paved with music inspiring the poems of our story, starts here.

|| FROM POETRY TO THE STORY ||

The last time we met, every living soul on Earth fell asleep after a strange event occurred. Music was blasting in their minds, creating dreams about their past while poetry paved the way.
Their mind was at peace. At last.

Our narrator, unlike others, heard a kaleidoscope of music’s history. Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” resonated first and, with it, dreams about society’s past.

A poem appeared along the way...

Your call!
What does it tell us about our story?
What’s that event, or those events, our narrator saw in the dreams?
CLICK HERE to share your craziest thoughts.

I’ll share the best and funniest answers in the next issue!

|| INTO THE MUSIC: BILLIE HOLIDAY’S “STRANGE FRUIT” ||

Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” is one of the ultimate tunes expressing how music has the power to leave a strong mark on history.

“Strange Fruit” story started as a poem by Abel Meeropol in 1937. With Ann’s help, his wife, he made a song out of it, which shortly became a protest song about the lynching of Black Americans. But when Billie Holiday finally agreed to perform it, "Strange Fruit” gained its anthem dimension.

Known as a jazz singer whose voice's talent shined through seductive waves and emotion, “Strange Fruit” was out-of-the-box of her repertoire. Yet, Billie Holiday offered its best rendering: one that makes you feel like you’re standing in front of the tree. No surprise it’s one of the rare blues classics that isn’t often covered by new generations of musicians. There’s something of a scent of moving magic in Billie’s version—one which no one else will ever be able to make you feel.

In the late 1930s, “Strange Fruit” disturbed as much as it moved the public. Many obstacles paved the song’s life, one of which led Billie Holiday to be banned from Mobile, Alabama, for trying to hum the tune.

Nowadays, “Strange Fruit” still resonates as an anthem of a lifetime, a protest song of the past highlighting our present and a chant that should never be forgotten.

|| BRAIN FUN FACT ||

Music has many benefits for human beings. Here's your monthly dose of fun fact and resource to learn more about it:

If you want to keep your brain young, listen to music!

More about this cool idea is on Johns Hopkins Medicine’s website.

|| | WORDSTOBEMUSIC | VOL.2 ||

As next month will be fully dedicated to | wordstobemusic | vol.2, I have a little gift for you: an exclusive interview with British singer SummerPearl recorded at the Cully Jazz Festival last April.

A 13 min talk where she shares everything about her future projects and her relationship with music and writing!

Make sure to grab | wordstobemusic | vol.2 later this summer—her performance will be explored through poetry.

|| OUR COMMUNITY RISES ||

This month, I’d like to share a poem called “The Engagement Farm” by @daffodil_jones which @arjantupan shared with me. These few stanzas moved me and inspired an interesting self-reflection. What about you?

|| CONTEST ||

It’s time to win some NFT poetry! CLICK HERE to suggest an album or a song!

In the next post, I’ll share a poem inspired by a piece of music you submitted {chosen by drawing lot}. The winner will win the 1/1 NFT poem.
The trick? If the album or song doesn’t inspire me anything, there’s nothing to win.

After all, our relationship to music is subjective, isn’t it ;)?

|| THANK YOU! ||

Thank you for reading! 

I hope this little getaway offered you some peace of mind.

If you'd like support the project, you can subscribe and/or collect this post or any of my other works.

☁️✒️


S.

Everyone who knows me or has been following my work knows poetry and music are my go-to clouds to express myself. Shake everything up through the moon, and you'll get an explosive blend—one out of which, one day, a story came to my mind. One where poetry and music are among the main characters. One you'll discover in my upcoming first novel. Such a creative burst only happens when music awakens thoughts in my head. I never wrote anything without music by my side. And I'm certainly not the only one who draws inspiration from music's chemical effects on our brains.

Music's impact on us intrigues me, like not many other things do.

Have you ever asked yourself how music impacted you and the world around you?

Some hate it, even repulse it. Some see it as just a lazy decoration that goes with the moment. It's even impossible for some of us to hear it as we do, and, for some, music is an essential part of their lives, something that blows their senses away when they meet THAT particular sound.

I know I belong in the last category, and if you're reading this, you probably do, too.

What is so special about music that it can profoundly impact our lives?

There's the impact on society, where music is the anthem for our riots, to lift our social revolutions, or get drunk on a night out at the club. And then, there's the personal impact, when the music hits us so profoundly we can't do anything but express what it makes us feel—from dancing like it was our last day on Earth to crying our grief out loud. It somehow becomes the missing piece to solve your life's puzzle.

This is what we will explore.
Not as a scientific paper would but as a creative one would.

Every once in a while {understand: when a new part of the story is ready to be shared}, we'll get on our magic cloud to explore a song or an album. We will discover the impact it had—or didn't have—on music's and/or society's history. Along the way, we will see what happens when a creative lets its sound invade her entirely.

Ok. Now, where do we start?

At the beginning of the story I’ve been telling you about lately
—one inspired by some of the music we will explore.

The story starts on an ordinary day. Well…except the sunset was weird. Hypnotic music suddenly replaced the Earth's usual sounds, and poetry started raining from the sky. Among the poems, two looked bigger. What happened in our brains was something we'd never experienced before. Words and music were in every corner of our minds. Everyone heard a different song—their most joyful one—and the poems left us feeling at peace. Then, everyone froze before falling into the deepest sleep they'd ever had.

Yeah…just an ordinary day on Earth.

This music was so powerful it created poetry in our minds.
That's the first thing the story tells us.

Everyone has a set of music that moves them the most. That's why, on that day, everyone heard something different. Our narrator heard a kaleidoscope of music's history. It started with the blues' early days before becoming everything it evolved into through the centuries. From yesterday's jazz to today's latest children—with it, bits of the past. Every sound brought a new hint to the story’s hidden pages. But some questions were left unsolved: why did our narrator hear more songs than the others on that day? Why did this all happen? And, last but not least, where did this music come from?

This is where the story meets our reality.
Music—so strong it can impact the course of a story.

How did these songs impact the story, us, and society?

With this travel through music at the core of our story's beginning, this newsletter will also explore everything those musicians accomplished and the impact it has—or doesn't have—on us, as a society, or as human beings. We will jump from one century to another. Sometimes, it'll be music to see our history from a different perspective. Sometimes, it'll be music to {re}discover just for the sake of it. We will find “fun facts” about music’s impact on our brains. Along the way, we will meet poetry. Well...a little bit more, actually:

these poems will tell us the story of a society about to change forever.

At the end of the road, the story will be a novel. One I will write at a peaceful pace, one page at a time {meaning: don’t expect it to be out for a while. We're in very very early stages}.

One where poetry and music are among the main characters.

While we wait for this fat baby to get out of me, you’ll get, once a month, in your inbox:
☁One poem part of the story
What does it tell us about the story? Your call!
In the next post, I’ll share your best & funniest interpretations of where this story goes.
☁A short introduction of the song or album that inspired the poem
☁A fun fact or resource to learn more about music’s impact on our brains.
☁A monthly contest: suggest an album or a song!
In the next post, I’ll share a poem inspired by a piece of music you submitted {chosen by drawing lot}. The winner will win the 1/1 minted poem. The trick? If the album or song doesn’t inspire me anything, there’s nothing to win. After all, our relationship to music is subjective, isn’t it 😉?

The little plus we all love:
☁If one of the songs inspired you to create a piece of art, mint it & shoot it! I'll add it to the next issue.
☁One highlight from the write3 community’s latest drop.
☁Updates on the | wordstobemusic | magazine next volume {hint: it’s also an element of the story)
☁More {fingers crossed} gems to discover in the future.

Here's your chance to win a 1/1 NFT poem to celebrate this!
Fill out this form to join the contest.

One last question: will you jump on our cloud?

I hope you'll enjoy our monthly getaway,

☁✒
S.

As 2022’s life’s maze ends at a blurry crossroads in my path, I reflected on what’s left on the table. What to keep. What to kill. What to heal.
Thirty-four years of life review in a two-years-exploding bomb led me to a fresh start.

Eventually, I came to the point where I doubted the writer in me. Am I good enough for this? Are people enjoying discovering the tortuous mind maze I live in? Is my poetry doing any good on Earth? Or is it another thing adding to its damaging spell? Is it even legit for me to consider myself an author? Shouldn’t I give up the belief that I’m good enough to write and be read? And...

what the f — is this poetry I’m writing anyway?

The fact that my mind maze reput me in that creative self-doubt state felt like another bomb. The first crisis happened when I was about 17 years old. It led me to 15 years of creative silence that felt like something was slowly dying in me. Writing poems and music tales have been the oxygen of my life maze since I was a child growing up in a tortuous world. So realizing that another bomb was again threatening my oxygen felt unreal. But, as the clouds living in my personal life did, the support you gave to my poems & | wordstobemusic | — coming from persons that didn’t know the crisis I was in — finally put an end to this mess.

Then, one day, I woke up reflecting on | wordstobepoetry |.

What it is, what it means for me, what adventure I want it to be — for me, for you, for us. I reflected on my poetry collections and how I don’t see them as random but somehow all sharing the same purpose and world. I reflected on my poetry’s love affair with music and how letting them fall in love with each other made me feel complete. Finally, I looked in the rearview and dived into those bits of chapters I’ve been writing since I was a child.

This made me realize I was writing bits and pieces of a world I’d imagined since childhood. A metaphoric world, living somewhere up in the clouds. A world where authenticity is the key. A world where Earth’s flaws and inequities are left behind. A world of daily adventures to preserve its essence.

A world where poetry and music meet to set us free.

Those bits and pieces slowly showed themselves as the foundations of this world. Life has sent me hints through tiny ideas, notes & tales over the years—a world to write through poetry, tales, and music. A world I know will take the time it needs to unveil its realms.

As for now, I invite you to join me on this adventure.
Over the following months and beyond, I’ll share its first shades through poetry collections telling the story of a poet/ess/ overcoming life’s maze and following music tales’ to find it.

Where is it? What is it? Who lives there? What does it hide?
We’ll discover the answers together.

All I know is that the poems we will meet are flying from there to us, bearing notes we should take care of, as their words hint at this living world’s nature, and | wordstobemusic | is this world’s favorite gateway to unwind the minds living there.
A getaway to the festival of emotions music brings to this world.

The poems, photographs & | wordstobemusic | I’ve published in the past already bear this world’s essence. When I created them, I felt they were hiding something more significant. But, it’s when I wrote | poetry sets us free | that the bigger picture revealed its nature — a poem as a tale, the first door of this world’s quest. This piece bears a unique place in this adventure.
And I’m sure it will unlock more magic in the future for anyone owning it.

Some say we must forget the past. I’m not one of those: owning a piece of this world published before 2023 will surely bring you closer to this world’s most hidden alleys in the future | that’s the power of web3 |.

At the end of the road, this world will take its written form and unveil its realms in a book — gathering a lifetime of writing into its final form. 
When? I have no idea. The only thing I’m sure of is that its story has been unveiling itself on its own path since I was twelve.

Slowly but surely, its shades will find our way.

The only remaining question is: will you sing our anthem along?

After all, poetry does set us free.

And that’s all my poetry needs to be.

Words truly,

S.

| wordstobepoetry |

Grab a cup of ☕, press play for some good old vibes, and enjoy this {longish} story.

In real life, people call me Sophia and know me as this 34yo girl whose heart is full of music and poems, humanistic ideals, and who has a surprising crush on humanitarian and copyright law—my mind, everywhere, all at once.
Mixing all of that creates an explosive blend, doesn't it 😅?

I was born and raised in Switzerland, far from all the world's stereotypes about us.
{Life definitely wasn't | still isn't, tbh | a quiet river.}

As I spent my childhood moving from city to city...

I fell in love with music, dancing, and writing.

They immediately became a kind of "best friends" to me.

Music came first as my home was full of the most incredible sounds of jazz, soul, African vibes, and the voices of every great singer on earth. For as long as I can remember, I was always dancing and singing to Miles Davis, Al Jarreau, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Stevie Wonder's vibes. As a true 90's kid, the Spice Girls definitely were around too.

I soon started spending afternoons & nights in my childhood room
writing baby poems while singing my favorite artist's songs.

A few years later, I started ballet, and after being quite bored by the discipline, I switched to something more liberating. That's when I met hip-hop. I instantly fell in love with its culture, its music, the tales it tells, and that special empowering freedom it offered us, dancers.

I remember writing my first attempt at music reviews when I was 12yo. A teacher asked us to write two press articles about something we loved. I chose Aaliyah & Tupac.

By then, music and writing had become essential parts of my life.

But I knew living off my passions was a thought dream. So I went on to University to discover my love for humanitarian and copyright law while studying singing at a jazz school, programming local bands and DJs at my University music festival, and writing music reviews and interviews for every national paper or webzine I could {I will share sneak peeks in the future}. I then went on to work in Switzerland's entertainment industry. Still writing about music whenever I could.

By this time, my poems and stories went quiet,
as if everything else kept them from living.

But life works in mysterious ways...

Something in my life happened during the lockdown, making me feel and live things I thought I couldn't. These waves of emotions were strong and colored with every existing emotion's shades. It became impossible not to write about them.

That's when I started writing my heart out again.

Since then, I haven't spent a day without a few lines popping up in my head: from poems to music impressions and bits of a story. A lot of them as garbage to make some room. But I felt some of them were here for one thing—the story I've been writing, tiny bits by tiny bits since I was a teenager, and hoping one day I could translate it into a book.

Even though I knew they were, back then, I didn't see how these bits were linked. Until some missing parts appeared—that's part of the story I'm looking forward to writing.

Another perspective on the link of the tiny bits made me conclude that I wanted to tell the story differently: start with little parts that lead to the extended version. A prequel? A Sneak peek? Even I don't know yet.
Social media could have been the right tool. But its rules to succeed made me feel I had to become someone I am not to be able to share this story.

I didn't know much about it. But I was never confident enough to think that there was room in the publishing industry for the Padawan author with the crazy-looking ideas that I am. {Anyway, my plate was full of real-life duties, and I wish to keep music in my life by working in its industry.}
And, I wasn't interested in discovering another crooked part of the huge family that is what we call in Switzerland the cultural industry.
What I had seen convinced me that I didn't quite belong to their code.

By 2021, I had discovered NFTs and web3 and was drawn to the possibilities they offered us. I soon realized I had found a way to make my crazy dream where poetry meets music to build a story a real thing: a story that reveals itself little by little over time, far from the industry's requirements, from a writer to a reader, without any obstacles.
Just the two of us discovered this story

That's when I met | wordstobepoetry |

But what is | wordstobepoetry |?

That's a question I'll answer in another post.

I hope you'll enjoy our getaway.

Words truly,

S.