In honor of Women’s History Month, Atwood Magazine has invited artists to participate in a series of essays reflecting on identity, music, culture, inclusion, and more.
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Today, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist CLOVER shares how deep diving into reproductive health education unlocked the door to more authentic songwriting in a special essay for Atwood Magazine’s Women’s History Month series!
CLOVER is an artist from Frenchtown, New Jersey, who blends the genres of folk, pop, and soul. Inspired by the likes of Lake Street Dive, Maggie Rogers, and Carole King, she puts the energy of the ’60s and ’70s in conversation with contemporary music, creating a sound that resonates across generations. From energetic and explosive groove-driven songs that get you on your feet, to songs that bring you to your knees in tears, CLOVER touches on topics of love, grief, sovereignty, confidence, and spirituality.
In 2018, after graduating from Bard College, CLOVER was invited to participate in NBC’s The Voice. She spent a month in LA filming for the show before she decided to leave prior to the premiere and fly home. This was a defining moment for CLOVER and her career, as she realized the importance of her independence and the power of having complete control over her music and image. Since then, CLOVER has fluidly moved through her independent artistry with grace. In Fall of 2018 she moved to Brooklyn, NY where she frequently performed at NYC venues like Rockwood Music Hall, Pete’s Candy Story, and PIANOS, and made an appearance on WNYC’s The Greene Space for Next Best Thing.
After releasing her debut single “This Love” in early 2020, she left Brooklyn and spent a year driving around the country to bring music to the people during the pandemic through street performance with her partner Dani Sundream. While on the road, she started making her own sustainable merch to sell while busking. She thrifted t-shirts, naturally dyed them with plants, and learned to screen print in the various places that became home.
Sustainability, female empowerment, and social activism guide her music. She co-wrote “Power” for MILCK which was featured on ABC Network for Women’s History Month in March of 2022. Following this, she played “War on Women” and “My Kind of Woman” at NYC Women’s March. In June of 2024, she performed on her biggest stage yet at the Levitt Pavilion SteelStacks in Bethlehem, PA. With the release of her debut EP on the horizon, this is just the beginning of CLOVER’s rise as an artist.
CLOVER’S debut EP ‘Atlas’ is out May 30th. Listen to her latest singles wherever you stream music, and read her Women’s History Month essay below!
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HOW THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE INFLUENCES MY SONGWRITING AND ARTISTRY
by CLOVER
In the summer of 2020, I made the daunting decision to go off of the birth control pill.
I was 24 years old, in a committed relationship, and I wanted to know what my body felt like without it. I had been taking the pill since I was 14… a decade of hijacking my hormones and being unaware of the consequences.
At the end of month one, my new period came around and punched me right in the uterus. I had debilitating cramps that made me curl up like a baby, whimper over the toilet while vomiting, and eventually fall asleep out of pure exhaustion from the pain. “What the actual f?”, I thought to myself. Is this what my period would have been like all of those years without the pill? Or was this a result of being on the pill for so long?
It could NOT be like this forever…so, I started to educate myself. I looked into what happens throughout each cycle, why we bleed, what causes things to feel so out of balance, and what I could do about it.
What did I find?
A TREASURE TROVE of information that no one taught us in school! I learned that our cycle holds the answers to so many mysteries, each month uncovering helpful information about our vitality. I learned that you can track where you are in your cycle by taking your temperature each morning, and know exactly when you are ovulating or going to bleed (even if it is different each month). I learned about how the four phases of the cycle are similar to the four seasons – Winter (Menstrual), Spring (Follicular), Summer (Ovulation), Fall (Luteal).
Not only did this treasure trove inspire my health care journey, but also my songwriting and artistry. If you ever see someone walk by with a hand drawn uterus on a t-shirt, it might be CLOVER merch!
“My Kind of Woman” is an unreleased track that will hopefully be coming out later this year. In the second verse I sing, “my softness is a cycle spinning around the womb / saturated scarlet, uterus an artist, watercolor blooms.”
I wrote this song during a time when I started being more intentional about living in sync with the seasons of my cycle. When I bleed, I am soft, I hibernate, I nourish myself. During the Follicular Phase, I start to emerge from my cocoon. During Ovulation, my energy and hormones are at their peak – I am a social butterfly. When the Luteal Phase starts to come around, my hormones are dropping and my energy is too – I am preparing for rest. Our modern day society doesn’t make it easy to follow this flow, and I am by no means perfectly aligned at every moment. But I’m now more in tune to what my body is telling me, leaning into whichever phase I’m currently in.
For Women’s History Month I created four playlists – one for each phase of the cycle. Lifestyle changes take time, but I hope these playlists can help you find a deeper connection with your cycle if that’s what you are looking for. – CLOVER
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:: connect with CLOVER here ::
“Menstrual Phase” | “Follicular Phase”
“Ovulation” | “Luteal Phase”
Beauteous Uterus Shirts
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Stream: “Used to It” – CLOVER
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Connect to CLOVER on
Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok, Facebook
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© Jennie Hankins
:: Stream CLOVER ::
