Leanne Haas
Windward Review are honored to highlight Volume 24: Power, Presence, Perspective (2026) contributor Leanne Haas, a marketing professional and TAMU-CC alumni. We were pleased to accept Haas's uniquely introspective poem, "Stone's Throw", and wanted to learn more about her writing style and motivation.
Haas shares that she utilizes writing and creativity heavily in her marketing career, "But the poetry and prose I write at 3 AM, when my thoughts are too loud to hold, fuel my love for creative expression". She also told us that stories shared - through writing or out loud - become a part of our own, protected stories. Overall, stories and creative expression connect us all through an "invisible thread".
"I’m interested in tracing that thread to understand how meaning forms in everyday life. Offering my inner thoughts as an author feels like weaving my thread into something larger that we all share." - Leanne Haas
Notes of Praise for Leanne Haas
The connective tissue that wildly creative writing forms motivates Haas to explore the "seemingly mundane experiences that shape us", she shares. Themes that emerge in Haas's work include religion and gender.
Some other notable features of "Stone's Throw" include its organic, surreal imagery and its haunting use of present tense voice.
"We yank crayfish from mud holes,
wondering how they made it off Noah’s Ark
and into the church's boiling pot for Friday lunch. .../
Sins of girls stick like gum on shoes.
We don’t serve at the altar with the boys and the priest,.../
But who gives more of their body and blood than a woman?"
Photo of Bandera, TX, United States by Braden Collum.
Her works can be found in the Houston Chronicle, Porter House Review, RED INK Journal, and Pour Vida Zine, among others. She loves exploring the outdoors and nature, practicing and teaching yoga, raising her two sweet pups, and being a closeted bedroom musician.
Gist will be published in Volume 22: Revolution which will be available October 29th, 2024. Enjoy a sample of her breathtaking poetry below.
Coyolxauhqui Takes Back Her Dance
Oh! Great Mother
they are staring at me in the Aztec Templo Mayor en Tenochtitlan.
I ring my coyolli bells | enter their dreams | carry their wishes up to the Milky Way
they call me evil sister | ruthless one | defeated one
but they are staring at my dance | down the steps watching
my hips | belly | breasts | shoulders shapeshift
they enter conocimiento | initiating
healing trabajos with
each eye on me
in my wounds
they have fallen
under my serpent spell
soon they will enter the night | search
the skies | mark calendars | count days
holler coyote gritos | name my moons | purr canciones
for planting | harvest | talk spirits
dance naked with me
align the blood of their
women with me
enter my
body mind
soul
forever
mesmerized little
luna-souls
Photo: Palo Duro Canyon outside Amarillo, TX, July 2022 by K. Mitch Hodge.
Mitztemoa Noyollo³ the song of tonalli, teyolía, tinnitus, and ihiyotl
I will close this circle
with a remedy
for the ringing inside me
Grito: Mitztemoa Noyollo!
my head – my heart – my liver
my lost luna spirit soul
calls out to you
across the cosmos
Grito: Mitztemoa Noyollo!
time is a spell
I will learn to listen
I will learn to see
I will dance with my body
to escape it
Grito: Mitztemoa Noyollo!
Can you feel me pull your heartstrings?
I will shapeshift until you find me
I will search the cenotes and dark caves
Can you heal me with your heartstrings?
Grito: Mitztemoa Noyollo!
If I don’t find your heart today
Grito: Mitztemoa Noyollo!
I will find your heart tomorrow
³Nahuatl for “My heart is looking for your heart”.
Photo of Guadalupe Mountains by Leonardo Corral, 2020.