We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Naomi Rachlis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Naomi below.
Naomi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?
I am a mother, a music therapist and the founder of Hellokoo. When covid lockdown made it impossible for me to practice music therapy I began writing. I needed a creative outlet and a way of processing all that was happening in the world. I found comfort in the simple form of haiku poetry. I began sharing my poetry online using digital collage and music. I was amazed to discover a large online global community of writers also drawn to haiku. As a music therapist my job is to support clients by providing a safe musical container for exploring their emotions. I realized that the 17 syllable structure of haiku creates a similar safe container for self expression. I invented Hellokoo poetry by borrowing the 5-7-5, three line poetry structure and inviting self expression within a safe container – giving people a space to grow creatively and otherwise. Hellokoos are free-flowing beyond their structure, with no limitations on topic or emotion. Hellokoo is a poetry community that I founded in February 2021 to encourage connection, creativity and self expression. Using prompts, hellokoos are made to connect a community and build bridges within ourselves. Now thousands of people write hellokoos weekly and they are featured together on the Hellokoo instagram page. We have offered a creative collective course and just published our first Hellokoo anthology featuring over 35 Hellokoo writers.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I began singing at a very young age. Went to performing arts high school and got my bachelor of fine arts in Music Theatre. Upon graduating I moved to Toronto to pursue acting before pivoting and going back to school to get my masters in music therapy. While doing my masters I had both of my kids now ages 10 & 12. We currently live in Brampton Ontario Canada. Up until Covid, I was a practicing music therapist working primarily with children on the autism spectrum. It was during Covid lockdown that I began writing and met poet and designer Ash Raymond James online. Ash is an incredible writer and designer. He designed the hellokoo anthology and helps bring my vision for Hellokoo to life. Since I invented Hellokoo and founded the Hellokoo community back in 2021, nearly 3000 writers have joined our Hellokoo community and over 10,000 hellokoos have been written.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Early on in the Hellokoo community I was offering daily prompts and reflecting back community members poetry for every single Hellokoo submitted. Over time I was able to reduce the number of prompts to one a week and reduce the number of featured writers to 17. This change did not impact the number of people writing, In fact hundreds of people still share their poetry weekly and are connected by the prompts. We have branched out and offer different types of prompts and writing challenges and are now encouraging submissions for published anthologies.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
The mission of Hellokoo is to encourage creativity and connection. It is a supportive online community made up of people writing from all over the world. The prompts encourage self-expression and the people provide a sense of real community and support.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Hellokoo.co Hellokoos_by_naomi