Many thanks to all who joined us Thursday evening for our session!  It has been heartening to welcome back so many returning participants, and exciting to keep seeing new faces each time we gather for this work online, with visitors from so many different places. 

The text for this session was “won’t you celebrate with me” by National Book Award winning poet, Lucille Clifton (posted below).  It was a phenomenal conversation starter and participants quickly began to offer observations and reflections on the personal connections they made to Clifton’s words and the layered and complex meanings that unfolded in our close reading.  Many commented on whether the opening question posed in the poem was one of amicable invitation, incensed demand, or a timid plea, or perhaps some mix of those emotions and motivations.  

As we explored the lines and phrases further, some found themselves drawn into the absence of capitalization, sharing that this artistic choice could signal Clifton’s attempt to “flatten” the dominant and oppressive voices that may have disregarded or excluded her perspective in the past.  Others engaged with the imagery in the poem and considered the relevance of “starshine and clay” as places to be caught between.  We also questioned how “one hand holding tight to my other hand” could be an action of self-care and support, or a description of praying in desperation, or a self-restraint to prevent lashing out at repeated perpetrators of injustice.

In writing to the prompt, “Write about the bridges you travel on”, many shared thoughts about where their particular journey over a metaphorical bridge had led them to and the direction through time it had taken them in.  More than one participant opened our minds to the possibilities of considering the bridge as a three dimensional space, writing about who and what may exist underneath, above, and alongside our bridges.  As always, we were grateful to have so many responses shared and to witness the genuine admiration participants expressed to one another about their work and the connections their writing revealed back to the original text.

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Please join us for our next session Saturday, May 23rd at 2pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

Won’t You Celebrate With Me 
by Lucille Clifton 


won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

Lucille Clifton, “won’t you celebrate with me” from Book of Light. Copyright © 1993 by Lucille Clifton. 

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

Our text was an excerpt from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, posted below.

Our prompt was: Take us on a walk through a memory.

A warm thank you to the mixture of familiar faces and new ones from around the globe — from India to Italy, from Beirut to Bahrain — who attended our session! The U.S. states were also well represented, including California, Iowa, Texas, Florida and Massachusetts. At least eight people were attending for the first time. (Welcome!)

We read an excerpt from Ocean Vuong’s book On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and together found wonderful layers of meaning. Many of us thought about what we mean when we talk about “prayer” and how that word can take us beyond the usual definitions. One participant talked about a pure transcendentalism in the fourth paragraph, and another saw allusions to multiple religions: the overtly Muslim prayer, but also a Buddhist notion of the walk and a Christian nod with blood. A third found sounds suggesting the wind of God, contrasting with the creatures on the ground where we live. We also noticed the sounds of the narrator’s walk and the references to the body: the skin, the blood and especially the intriguing phrase “as if the tongue was the smallest arm from which a word like that could be offered.” (Several people mentioned that they plan to pursue more of Vuong’s work. A recent conversation between Vuong and Krista Tippett can be heard on the On Being podcast.)

Our writing prompt – “Take us on a walk through a memory” – drew a variety of responses, many of which mingled the abstract and the concrete. Some participants played with alliteration, repetition, movement, and rhythm in their writing, while others incorporated imagery, changes in temporality, and even lyrics in Farsi. Several participants gave their writings titles, which was a unique change from previous workshops. Many others, like Vuong, used their writing to bring experience into understanding, recalling “memories tinted with the reality of now,” and discovering through their writing where “the sacred” lies.

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Please join us for our next session Thursday, May 21st at 7pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, excerpt by Ocean Vuong

Back in Hartford, I used to wander the streets at night by myself. Sleepless, I’d get dressed, climb through the window— and just walk.

Some nights I would hear an animal shuffling, unseen, behind garbage bags, or the wind unexpectedly strong overhead, a rush of leaves clicking down, the scrape of branches from a maple out of sight. But mostly, there were only my footsteps on the pavement steaming with fresh rain, the scent of decade- old tar, or the dirt on a baseball field under a few stars, the gentle brush of grass on the soles of my Vans on a highway median.

But one night I heard someone praying.

Through the lightless window of a street- level apartment, a man’s voice in Arabic. I recognized the word Allah. I knew it was a prayer by the tone he used to lift it, as if the tongue was the smallest arm from which a word like that could be offered. I imagined it floating above his head as I sat there on the curb, waiting for the soft clink I knew was coming. I wanted the word to fall, like a screw in a guillotine, but it didn’t. His voice, it went higher and higher, and my hands, they grew pinker with each inflection. I watched my skin intensify until, at last, I looked up— and it was dawn. It was over. I was blazed in the blood of light.

Salat al- fajr: a prayer before sunrise. “Whoever prays the dawn prayer in congregation,” said the Prophet Muhammad, “it is as if he had prayed the whole night long.”

I want to believe, walking those aimless nights, that I was praying. For what I’m still not sure. But I always felt it was just ahead of me. That if I walked far enough, long enough, I would find it— perhaps even hold it up, like a tongue at the end of its word.

(c) 2019 Penguin Press/Ocean Vuong

A combination of new and returning participants, 31 total, joined us today, representing local (IN, IA, OR, CT, NJ, NY, CA WA and MI) and international (India, Canada, Italy, the UK, Morocco, Switzerland and Spain) perspectives. 

Our text was a page of six panels from cartoonist Roz Chast’s book Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? posted below. Three readers, each representing a voice in the cartoon panel sequence, read it aloud twice. One workshop participant identified a missing voice: that of the mother who was present only as the object of care. Themes discussed included the assumptive inaccuracy of classifying caretaking as “dirty work” and the proposal of caretaking as honorable,  the cyclical nature of the parent/child relationship, the intersectionality of race and gender, the tensions between self-care and care for others, and the movement through layers of time. Readers identified with the portrayal of conflicting emotions.

Our prompt “Write or draw good hands” brought us from the visually particular (tending wounds of a dirty old tomcat, white knuckles, making chicken soup, prayer beads) to the universal (holding space, comfort, goodness, visualization, caregiving at a cost, an incantation like a prayer). Accessing an emotional intergenerational space, one participant wrote, “Now is the time for holding hands,” an affirmation that seemed not only to capture the mood of the moment, but also to remind us that even a Zoom across the internet can feel like a room of care. The summarizing comment noted with wonder that the small frames of an artist’s work can hold us secure together for a moment in the great cosmos.

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured. If you chose to draw, your are welcome to share as well, simply email your visual file to narrativemedicine@columbia.edu and we will add and credit it to the post here.

Please join us for our next session Wednesday, May 20th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

At tonight’s session we welcomed familiar faces from around the US — Pennsylvania, Indiana, Iowa, and more — and also from India, to read the poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here,” by Poet Laureate of the United States Joy Harjo, posted below.

The poem invited a range of readings and responses, as participants reflected on the literal and metaphorical representation of the kitchen table. One person referred to the way the poem was bracketed — like life — by a beginning and an ending; another wondered why the ending was the focus, reflected in the poet’s choice of title. Importantly, one participant noted the privilege embedded in the very notion of home represented by the table image. The diversity of responses pointed itself to the value of narrative medicine, in its invitation to engage with the experiences and interpretations of others.

As we responded in writing to the prompt, “At this table…” this idea was reflected again in participants’ shared writing, which — through that one powerful image — opened into a world of memories, dreams, and connections.

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Please join us for our next session Sunday, May 17th at 2pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

“Perhaps the World Ends Here” from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 1994 by Joy Harjo.

Thank you to today’s 41 participants who joined us from around the United States and the world, including India, France, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands!

After introductions and a centering exercise, we shared an especially rich discussion of the 1985 painting Camas para Sueños (Beds for Dreams), by Carmen Lomas Garza, posted below. We entered into our discussion through the following questions, “How do you enter this painting? Where did your eye start, and where did it end?” Our eyes went many places: into the shadows, to the moon, among flowers, and to childhood. We thought about the frame of the window within the outer frame of the image as a whole, and we noticed how looking into someone’s window can feel voyeuristic. The artistic style evoked terms like “storybook” and “playful,” and we noticed the surprise of daffodils, which appear in early spring, beneath leafy trees of summer, lending a quality of magical realism. This sense was amplified by the way the daffodils and trees were both in bloom, and each item appeared in its ideal form — a full moon, showy flowers, full trees, the straight lines of the house. We also explored elements of dualism, including concealment/unconcealment, darkness/light, artificial light/natural light, and outdoors/indoors. And we talked about the quiet mood, a moment in time, true safety and security, confinement and expanse. Details such as a crucifix, an apron and daffodils inspired connections to symbolism of fertility, peace, hope and joy. 

We wrote to the prompt, “Write about something that stays with you,” which evoked responses that often had a flavor of magical realism that echoed the painting we had just discussed. Specific details of the painting, such as the moon and the flora, appeared as elements in the writings. In one, they were woven into the narrator’s own story so that the narrator seemed to move in and out of the world of the painting. Some participants wrote about nostalgia, memory, childhood, family, and reaching across time and space through generations to loved ones.  Another participant wrote about “liquid love,” a phrase that stood out to many of us for both its alliteration and its metaphorical possibilities. 

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Please join us for our next sessions: Friday, May 15th at 7pm EDT in English or Thursday May 14th at 18:00 CET in Polish, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!