Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EDT May 3rd 2024

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Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Statement of Teaching Philosophy” by Keith Leonard, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about when words fail.”

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

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Please join us for our next session Friday May 10th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Statement of Teaching Philosophy by Keith Leonard

My students want certainty. They want it
so badly. They respect science and have memorized
complex formulas. I don’t know
how to tell my students their parents
are still just as scared. The bullies get bigger
and vaguer and you cannot punch a cloud.
I have eulogies for all my loved ones prepared,
but cannot include this fact in my lesson plans.
The best teacher I ever had told me to meet him
at the basketball court. We played pick-up for hours.
By the end, I lay panting on the hardwood
and couldn’t so much as stand.
He told me to describe the pain in my chest.
I tried. I couldn’t find the words. Not exactly.
Listen, he said, that’s where language ends.

Credit: Keith Leonard. Waxwing literary journal

Rita Basuray prompt response:

7 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EDT May 3rd 2024”

  1. michele348

    About when words fail~~~

    Bombs flying through the darkened skiesPeople screaming, bodies bleedingChildren left homelessPeople enslaved by governments who do notrecognize their uniqueness, their human-ness

    How did we arrive at this point…this point at the edge of humanitywhere compassion and moralityare foreign words

    Free speech denied,trampling on the rights of othersWhere do the dividing boundaries lie

    Selling of human life,like a piece of meat at the meat marketThe atrocity of one person owning another…the words escape me

    Will there ever be an end,or must we move to the edge of the cliffand then drop off into the abyss

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    • Elizabeth

      Michele, as I said in the chat, I’m so used to you ending your work positively and including some nature to be helpful. It just goes to show that sometimes things are so distressing it’s not easy to come up with the positive… and that is real truth.

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  2. Elizabeth

    I wanted to express

    all of these feelings

    that were roiling inside of me,

    but when I spewed them out

    I get riled up

    and there was no comfort.

    Maybe the words have to stay

    buried deep inside of me

    for my own

    peace of mind.

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    • rehavia6

      Interesting, I find speaking my truth freeing. I got it out and now the other person knows how I feel and I can move on.

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    • michele348

      Elizabeth, whatever brings you peace is the way to go. In my writing for today, there were things I felt needed said, and things that needed to be faced head-on. Ignoring the evil in the world does not give impetus to finding a resolution to defeat it. I know it wasn’t my usual train of thought, but sometimes we all need a fire lit up under our shoes.

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      • Elizabeth

        Michele, glad you said what was in your heart and on your mind. Also, I realize that we need to use different tools to deal with a different situations in different times.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. Elizabeth

    Rehavia(don’t remember your real name)- I usually agree with you, but lately I realize that I have been very frustrated and angry about so many events that when I verbally release those feelings they go into a loop and they come up again and again and again… Not really helpful sometimes. So I’m flipping it a bit by feeling them, but not spewing them, and it does seem to be helpful. To each their own.

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