Anne Poarch
Anne Poarch grew up the youngest of five in the sandhills of North Carolina. Her mother and sister taught her the fine art of making a home, the equal beauty in shelling fresh peas or folding a crisply laundered sheet, while her father and brothers taught her how to paint, fish, and garden…to be outside and ramble the woods. After graduating cum laude from Wake Forest University in 1991, Anne traveled to Paris, where she worked as an au pair for the Picasso family, and attended the University of Paris, Sorbonne. After her year-long sojourn abroad, she returned to live and work in Richmond, Virginia, where she lives today with her husband and two sons.
Anne worked for twenty-two years in the financial services industry as an institutional salesperson and financial advisor before leaving to start her own company and pursue her creative interests. As founder of Basket & Bike, a bicycle tour company offering bicycle excursions and rentals along the Virginia Capital Trail in Richmond and Williamsburg, she wants to empower people to connect with the land and their communities by promoting a leisurely bicycle lifestyle. Her company gives back a portion of every tour to a rotating conservation cause. Anne is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Richmond, Reveille United Methodist Church, the Woman’s Club, and the Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton, a member club of the Garden Club of Virginia and the Garden Club of America.
To learn more about Anne, follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and visit her website.
Anne worked for twenty-two years in the financial services industry as an institutional salesperson and financial advisor before leaving to start her own company and pursue her creative interests. As founder of Basket & Bike, a bicycle tour company offering bicycle excursions and rentals along the Virginia Capital Trail in Richmond and Williamsburg, she wants to empower people to connect with the land and their communities by promoting a leisurely bicycle lifestyle. Her company gives back a portion of every tour to a rotating conservation cause. Anne is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Richmond, Reveille United Methodist Church, the Woman’s Club, and the Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton, a member club of the Garden Club of Virginia and the Garden Club of America.
To learn more about Anne, follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and visit her website.
Books
Flight: of butterflies and robins and other winged dreams
$23.95
written by Anne Poarch
illustrated by Sander Gibson
Flight: of butterflies and robins and other winged dreams is a very personal collection of forty-eight poems. This thoughtful work chronicles the voice of a maturing young woman as she reawakens her heart and soul to the beauty of God’s natural world. She uncovers love, grief, self-awareness, and a happiness for which she is utterly unprepared. Bridging an out-of- doors childhood and the death of her father at age eleven, to a motherhood in which she longs to share all of nature with her young sons, the pages will surprise you and inspire you. To open these poems is to take a walk through the seasons, to pause and reflect on the intersection of the spiritual and physical, the love of parent and child. Placed mostly within the backdrop of Richmond, Virginia, words are arranged, not by academic instruction, but by feeling and emotion. Poems are shared with a voice of appreciation and awe, all the while wondering if the ephemeral dreams of love, joy, and beauty can be sustained. Or is that the lesson the young woman learns from her butterfly? As Anne Poarch expresses, none of us need try and hold beauty, because we all carry her in our hearts and souls.
More About Anne Poarch
After graduating cum laude from Wake Forest University, Anne Poarch traveled to Paris, where she attended the University of Paris, Sorbonne. Not only that, but while she was there, she worked as an au pair for the Picasso family. You read that right - the Picasso family! Don’t think Anne could get any cooler? Well, Anne’s also the founder of Basket and Bike, an awesome bicycle tour company here in RVA! The list goes on: Anne is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Richmond, Reveille United Methodist Church, the Woman’s Club, and the Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton, a member club of the Garden Club of Virginia, and the Garden Club of America. To top it all off, in the midst of being a wonderful businesswoman, mother, wife, friend, and all-around outstanding person, Anne found the time to publish her first volume of poetry with us, Flight: of butterflies and robins and other winged dreams.
When Anne Poarch started earnestly journaling about a decade ago, she had no idea where it would lead. She wrote about memories that took her back to her experiences growing up; these nostalgic, fond, and sometimes heartbreaking memories eventually turned into poetry. You might say Anne’s three main inspirations are people, nature, and faith. She is constantly observing how people interact with one another, and with the nature that surrounds them. Anne believes that nature holds a unique beauty that when internalized, combines with one’s faith to create a beautiful light from within that cannot be dimmed. Make no mistake, Anne is not one to relegate herself to the sidelines as an eternal observer. In Anne’s words, “we are all stewards,” and she believes her calling is to reach out and build meaningful connections with people. It has become part of Anne’s everyday life to make positive, authentic, and lasting connections with the people she meets, and in so doing she has realized within herself a confidence, and acceptance, she never knew before. That’s what Anne’s poetry has given her, and what she hopes others take away after reading it -- a sense of interconnection with nature, other human beings, and maybe most importantly, with oneself.
As it turns out, nature has not only inspired Anne’s poetry, but her career. After more than twenty years in the financial services industry, Anne couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something missing in her life. She wanted her profession to be meaningful to herself and to others, and ultimately, she wanted to do something that put her in touch with the great outdoors on a daily basis. And so, the seeds of Anne’s company, Basket and Bike, began to take root. After much hard work and determination, Anne conducted her first bike tour a year and a half ago, in March of 2016, and her tours have since grown and prospered in the RVA community and in surrounding areas. Basket and Bike offers hand-crafted bicycle excursions and picnic rides on the Virginia Capital Trail, and on the streets of Richmond and Williamsburg. According to Anne, “every excursion aims to celebrate life along Virginia’s pastoral landscapes and encourages biking as an everyday mode of transportation.” Now, Anne is able to do what she loves - interact with the people and nature that surround her, and build the meaningful connections she’s always wanted.
When we asked Anne about her future endeavors, she just smiled at us - because she has already accomplished so much of what she’s always wanted to do. Anne comes from a very creative family, but being creative and seeing a project through don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. It was always a goal of Anne’s to not only create something beautiful, but to FINISH something beautiful. In Flight, Anne’s debut book of poetry, we think she’s done just that. So, this begs the question, what could she possibly do next? Well, Anne is working with Belle Isle on producing another book of poetry, but this one is “grittier than Flight." She also mentioned that she’s exploring an idea she has for a cookbook! No matter what she decides to do next, we can’t wait to see it -- there’s no doubt it’ll be great!
When Anne Poarch started earnestly journaling about a decade ago, she had no idea where it would lead. She wrote about memories that took her back to her experiences growing up; these nostalgic, fond, and sometimes heartbreaking memories eventually turned into poetry. You might say Anne’s three main inspirations are people, nature, and faith. She is constantly observing how people interact with one another, and with the nature that surrounds them. Anne believes that nature holds a unique beauty that when internalized, combines with one’s faith to create a beautiful light from within that cannot be dimmed. Make no mistake, Anne is not one to relegate herself to the sidelines as an eternal observer. In Anne’s words, “we are all stewards,” and she believes her calling is to reach out and build meaningful connections with people. It has become part of Anne’s everyday life to make positive, authentic, and lasting connections with the people she meets, and in so doing she has realized within herself a confidence, and acceptance, she never knew before. That’s what Anne’s poetry has given her, and what she hopes others take away after reading it -- a sense of interconnection with nature, other human beings, and maybe most importantly, with oneself.
As it turns out, nature has not only inspired Anne’s poetry, but her career. After more than twenty years in the financial services industry, Anne couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something missing in her life. She wanted her profession to be meaningful to herself and to others, and ultimately, she wanted to do something that put her in touch with the great outdoors on a daily basis. And so, the seeds of Anne’s company, Basket and Bike, began to take root. After much hard work and determination, Anne conducted her first bike tour a year and a half ago, in March of 2016, and her tours have since grown and prospered in the RVA community and in surrounding areas. Basket and Bike offers hand-crafted bicycle excursions and picnic rides on the Virginia Capital Trail, and on the streets of Richmond and Williamsburg. According to Anne, “every excursion aims to celebrate life along Virginia’s pastoral landscapes and encourages biking as an everyday mode of transportation.” Now, Anne is able to do what she loves - interact with the people and nature that surround her, and build the meaningful connections she’s always wanted.
When we asked Anne about her future endeavors, she just smiled at us - because she has already accomplished so much of what she’s always wanted to do. Anne comes from a very creative family, but being creative and seeing a project through don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. It was always a goal of Anne’s to not only create something beautiful, but to FINISH something beautiful. In Flight, Anne’s debut book of poetry, we think she’s done just that. So, this begs the question, what could she possibly do next? Well, Anne is working with Belle Isle on producing another book of poetry, but this one is “grittier than Flight." She also mentioned that she’s exploring an idea she has for a cookbook! No matter what she decides to do next, we can’t wait to see it -- there’s no doubt it’ll be great!