Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT September 7th 2021

Thank you to everyone who joined for this session!

For this session we close read the poem “The Painting After Lunch” by Clarence Major, posted below.

Our prompt for this session was: “Write or draw about a time it wasn’t working.

More details on this session will be posted, 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 Monday September 13th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.


“The Painting After Lunch” by Clarence Major

It wasn’t working. Didn’t look back. Needed something else. So
I went out. After lunch I saw it in a different light, like a thing
emerging from behind a fever bush, something reaching the
senses with the smell of seaweed boiling, and as visible as yellow
snowdrops on black earth. Tasted it too, on the tongue Jamaica
pepper. To the touch, a velvet flower. Dragging and scumming, I
gave myself to it stroke after stroke. It kept coming in bits and fits,
fragments and snags. I even heard it singing but in the wrong key
like a deranged bird in wild cherries, having the time of its life.

Clarence Major, "The Painting After Lunch" 
from Waiting for Sweet Betty. 
Copyright © 2002 by Clarence Major. 

4 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT September 7th 2021

  1. Susan Walker

    Too many patients. Not enough time.
    Parents calling, frustrated, wanting their child to be seen.
    My own frustration mounting.
    All of us, ready to explode.
    Overwhelmed, I add the 3 year old with ear pain on at 3PM.
    5 minutes later, the other 3PM patient cancels.

    Like

  2. Write about a time it wasn’t working~~~

    It wasn’t working. I snuggled into the sofa as the bright summer sun streamed through the blinds.
    Clouded thoughts, blurred vision, frustration.
    So I gave in and dozed off.
    Myriad of thoughts floating through.
    Words scurrying by, vivid colors showing themselves.

    I woke up in a start.
    There it is and hurriedly jotted down on paper what was soon to depart from my senses.
    It hadn’t come to me earlier when I was trying to force it, but there it was hiding, waiting for an opportunity to escape.
    The subconscious is a mighty force.

    Like

  3. Patricia D.

    This prompt isn’t working:
    nothing pops into my mind
    as I stare at the lined paper
    with scarcely a word to add
    in blue ink.
    Blank, blah, empty page.
    Where is my intoxicated bird
    to lift my lackluster Spirit?

    Like

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