Not too far removed from singers/songwriters are poets. Songs are just poetry set to music. Author Cleo Childs debuted her first spoken word project in May. The work entitled Moving With is a collection of 14 poems set to music. It was written throughout her personal, emotional journey as she witnessed her mother’s brave struggle through the stages of Alzheimer’s.
Childs’ mother passed in 2021 from early onset Alzheimer’s when she was just 28 and it sent her into a deep depression. She tried to “intellectually” get over it by learning everything she could about grief.
“I thought all of these things, if I could learn what was happening to me, if I could understand it, then I could make it hurt less. And I tried my very best, and it did not make it hurt any less,” she explained.
Childs discovered that the best way to get through it was to feel it, and by writing, she found a constructive outlet for dealing with her pain. It was through this creation that she found joy in her grief. In the poem “Moving With,” which the album/collection was named after, she learns that there is no moving on (from grief), just moving with it.
“You’ve got to be allowed to just be in grief and feel how you’re feeling and recognize it’s really a hard thing that you’re doing,” she stated.
Other titles in her spoken word album include “She Pours In,” “Mother to Daughter,” and “Don’t Cry for Me,” to name a few. Several podcasters have interviewed Childs, and the podcasts can be heard on her website.
The most interesting thing about the author, Childs, is that her grandmother (who is still alive) was an English teacher, and her mother was an English major while she was studying marketing in college. Writing creatively has made her feel more connected to her mother and her love of language. Additionally, her grandmother helped to edit her poetry, which helped her heal after having lost a child.
“The poems helped to be a bridge between the two of us. Through the poetry, we were able to sit with each other on our individual journeys of grief while also supporting each other,” Childs added.
The companion musical bed for the poetry was produced by Jim Reilley (Sheryl Crow, Vince Gill, Hal Ketchum) and edited by Americana Music Association’s “International Artist of the Year,” Grammy-nominated, Mary Gauthier (Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Jimmy Buffet).
Childs valued complete honesty in her poems, and Mary Gauthier became her “truth editor.”
She said, “It’s incredibly important to me that the poems are truthful and honest because people in grief can spot falsities. Yet, people who are going through their own experience may be able to relate to yours.”
Childs was back in Nashville last week recording her next body of work, which will differ from Moving With. She had a wonderful experience recording the first record and was thrilled to be back in “one of the most wonderful cities in the world.”
Like the many songwriters I have interviewed, Childs shares her thoughts and feelings through her poetry. She hopes to give an authentic and honest look at what her grief felt like so that other people going through grief don’t feel alone and feel community in their grief.
And while we live separate lives and are virtually unknown to each other, we find commonality in the human experience. Through music and poetry, we can open up a conversation that can help people not feel so isolated.
And that is something we need more than ever now.
You can read Child’s poems on her website. You can listen to her poetry here.
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Bethany Bowman is a freelance entertainment writer. You can follow her blog, Instagram, and X.
