Beneath tangerine skies, Britt Warner loads a piece of paper into her typewriter at her pop-up poetry stand, ready to turn a stranger's word or theme into a poem on the spot.

While the practice appears spontaneous, it stems from her habit of noticing Tucson's curiosities and turning the ordinary into poetry.

That habit of noticing didn't start in Tucson, though. Warner has been writing and making music for as long as she can remember.

“It's always been a part of me, something I always felt compelled to do,” she said.

She originally thought she would channel her love of writing into journalism, becoming the youngest staff writer for her city's paper while still in high school.

But she soon found she wanted a more creative way to express herself.

“I didn't like being told what to do with my writing,” she said.

She continued to write through music, working as a singer and songwriter and making cinematic pop music. For seven years, she was part of the musical duo October's Child with multi-instrumentalist Jordan Waré.

It was through songwriting that Warner found her love for poetry.

“I didn't label myself a poet,” she said. “I was a songwriter, there was another purpose for it. Words were constructed to be sung.”

But Warner has never confined her creativity to a single medium. At 15, she started working at a hardware store, where she said she was “surrounded by potential.”

From 2018 to 2024, she worked as a carpenter in California, calling herself Ms. Fixit and building fences, decks, custom mailboxes, chicken runs and bookcases.

Then in January 2025, wildfires upended her life, forcing Warner, her brother, sister-in-law and their dogs to flee to Tucson, seeking shelter with a friend of a friend in Barrio Viejo.

Initially, Tucson was a sanctuary from the madness in Los Angeles, but Warner quickly fell in love with the city.

She began taking in her surroundings and posting her musings on Instagram, some humorous anecdotes, others poetic imagery of the Sonoran Desert, many beginning with the phrase, "In Tucson."

When she first started making the posts, she didn't intend for them to become poetry.

“I felt like an alien from another planet, studying my new environment with a mix of fascination, humor, appreciation and absurdity,” Warner said. “I just needed an outlet for it. So what better place than social media?”

Warner also has a talent for seeing the possibility in things often overlooked. After settling into Tucson, she found inspiration in the magic of the saguaros and the warmth of both the sun and the people who called the city home.

“This place feels like home. It embraced me and swept me away faster than anywhere else I've lived,” she said.

Warner started moving away from music and found herself taking a nontraditional approach to writing poetry. What began as social media posts to make sense of her environment transitioned into something both poetic and hilarious.

“I'm not trying to live up to the greats or to the expectations of ghosts,” she explained. “Like most everything else, I do it my way.”

Warner credits Laura Horley with giving her the courage to share her work with the public. The two served as writing accountability buddies, doing prompt-based exercises at Bar Crisol.

Horley said she was struck by how “textured, tangible, heartbreaking, and hilarious her writing was.” She said Warner's work transcends the constraints of any single genre.

“Is she a poet? A storyteller? A memoirist? An essayist? Yes,” Horley said.

Warner credits that flexibility to her generation, which she said lives in the space between before and after the internet.

“For me, it's taking the before and the after and fusing them in a way that makes sense,” Warner said.

Poetry's place in the modern world is “to get people to notice things,” Warner said. Social media can be desensitizing, but she said poetry is simply the art of noticing.

“Don't write off the seemingly ordinary,” she said. “Maybe that's what I found in Tucson, that the ordinary has tremendous magic if you give it its own moment in the sun.”

Warner gestured at her surroundings: a green palo verde tree and a beady-eyed pigeon circling the table.

“There are so many curiosities here that are different from what I was used to. I guess for me that's the best possible place for creativity to come from: curiosity,” she said. “I don't think I was trying to write poems; I was just wanting a new way to express myself.”

As a songwriter, Warner had sessions where she had only a few minutes to write a song, a practice that primed her for the pop-up poetry she does now. Given a word or theme, she can have a poem typed up in about 10 minutes.

“I don't feel like the pressure to deliver is negative; I thrive under it,” she said. “I have a split second to read a person and their energy, make a connection and tap into something that they don't know how to say.”

Nick Georgiou attended Warner's monthly writers workshop, “The Inkubator,” held at Bar Crisol in September, after stopping by her stand at Westbound and buying a poem from her.

“I really appreciate how connected she feels to everyone and everything around her,” he said.

As an artist, Georgiou works with paper every day and said he appreciates Warner's use of physical print in her work.

“To see Britt encouraging engagement and interaction with paper makes me happy,” Georgiou said. “Phones off. Eyes and ears present. Britt's casual nature and approach to writing leads you in many directions, sometimes giving you the ability to access a memory that has been forgotten or hidden.”

Warner released her first collection of poems and short stories, “The Old Carousel,” in January.

Horley, who read a late draft of Warner's second collection, “In Tucson,” said both books have “an effortless, intuitive flow.”

“As a second-generation Tucsonan, I was especially excited to see my city cast back at me through fresh eyes,” Horley said. “I laughed a lot while reading it.”

“In Tucson” will be released Oct. 10, after which Warner will embark on her “In Tucson” tour, hosted by Arizona Arts Live, Why I Love Where I Live, Stacks Book Club and others.

Books are available for pre-order leading up to the release.

Ava Schrag is a University of Arizona journalism student and Tucson Spotlight intern. Contact her at avaschrag@arizona.edu.

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