Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

Our text for this session was the poem “The Courtesy of the Blind” by Wisława Szymborska, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about being in the middle.”

More details about this session will be posted soon, so check back!

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.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if you’re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Wednesday, December 9th at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

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The Courtesy of the Blind
 by Wisława Szymborska
 
 The poet reads his lines to the blind.
 He hadn’t guessed that it would be so hard.
 His voice trembles. 
 His hands shake. 
 
 He senses that every sentence 
 is put to the test of darkness. 
 He must muddle through alone, 
 without colors or lights. 
 
 A treacherous endeavor
 for his poems’ stars, 
 dawns, rainbows, clouds, their neon lights, their moon, 
 for the fish so silvery thus far beneath the water
 and the hawk so high and quiet in the sky.  

 He reads—since it’s too late to stop now—
 about the boy in a yellow jacket on a green field, 
 red roofs that can be counted in the valley, 
 the restless numbers on soccer players’ shirts, 
 and the naked stranger standing in a half-shut door. 
 
 He’d like to skip—although it can’t be done—
 all the saints on that cathedral ceiling, 
 the parting wave from a train, 
 the microscope lens, the ring casting a glow, 
 the movie screens, the mirrors, the photo albums. 
 
 But great is the courtesy of the blind, 
 great is their forbearance, their largesse. 
 They listen, smile, and applaud. 
 
 One of them even comes up 
 with a book turned upside down 
 asking for an autograph they will never see. 

“The Courtesy of the Blind” 
from MONOLOGUE OF A DOG: New Poems by Wisława Szymborska, 
translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.
English translation copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.