Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Under Ideal Conditions” by Al Zolynas, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about losing the light.”

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

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 Friday December 8th at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

 "Under Ideal Conditions" by Al Zolynas

say in the flattest part of North Dakota
on a starless moonless night
no breath of wind

a man could light a candle
then walk away
every now and then
he could turn and see
the candle burning

seventeen miles later
provided conditions remained ideal
he could still see the flame

somewhere between the seventeenth and eighteenth mile
he would lose the light

if he were walking backwards
he would know the exact moment
when he lost the flame

he could step forward and find it again
back and forth
dark to light light to dark

what's the place where the light disappears?
where the light reappears?
don't tell me about photons
and eyeballs
reflection and refraction
don't tell me about one hundred and eighty-six thousand
miles per second and the theory of relativity

all I know is that place
where the light appears and disappears
that's the place where we live

originally published by Laterthanever Press, 1994, San Diego CA
Copyright Al Zolynas

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read an excerpt from a story “The Great Silence” by Ted Chiang, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a call from the wild.”

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

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 November 27th at 6pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

 "The Great Silence" by Ted Chiang

The humans use Arecibo to look for extraterrestrial intelligence. Their desire to make a connection is so strong that they’ve created an ear capable of hearing across the universe.

But I and my fellow parrots are right here. Why aren’t they interested in listening to our voices?

We’re a non-human species capable of communicating with them. Aren’t we exactly what humans are looking for?

The universe is so vast that intelligent life must surely have arisen many times. The universe is also so old that even one technological species would have had time to expand and fill the galaxy. Yet there is no sign of life anywhere except on Earth. Humans call this the Fermi paradox.

One proposed solution to the Fermi paradox is that intelligent species actively try to conceal their presence, to avoid being targeted by hostile invaders.

Speaking as a member of a species that has been driven nearly to extinction by humans, I can attest that this is a wise strategy.

It makes sense to remain quiet and avoid attracting attention.

The humans use Arecibo to look for extraterrestrial intelligence. Their desire to make a connection is so strong that they’ve created an ear capable of hearing across the universe.

But I and my fellow parrots are right here. Why aren’t they interested in listening to our voices?

We’re a non-human species capable of communicating with them. Aren’t we exactly what humans are looking for?

The universe is so vast that intelligent life must surely have arisen many times. The universe is also so old that even one technological species would have had time to expand and fill the galaxy. Yet there is no sign of life anywhere except on Earth. Humans call this the Fermi paradox.

One proposed solution to the Fermi paradox is that intelligent species actively try to conceal their presence, to avoid being targeted by hostile invaders.

Speaking as a member of a species that has been driven nearly to extinction by humans, I can attest that this is a wise strategy.

It makes sense to remain quiet and avoid attracting attention.

Credit: “The Great Silence” by Ted Chiang from THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY 2016 published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Copyright © 2015 by Ted Chiang. 

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the painting “Curfew (Likoni March 27 2020) 2022″ by Michael Armitage, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Start with I have witnessed…”

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

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 November 20th at 6pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

“Curfew (Likoni March 27 2020) 2022″ by Michael Armitage

Credit: Michael Armitage.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Fourth Wall Arpeggio” by A. Van Jordan, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about love’s austere and lonely offices.”

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

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 Friday November 17th at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

 "Fourth Wall Arpeggio" by A. Van Jordan

Lately, my friends ask me, out of love,
have I written about my mother,
who suffers under the storm of Alzheimer’s disease,
and I tell them, “I don’t write about my family,
never directly, at least.” To write this poem seems so

out of character for me, but it’s not about my mother,
as much as it’s about how, as a son, the disease
measures the changing rituals of family.
And 28 lines—all I’ve provided myself—seems so
anemic. Now, I barely have 18 lines left for a love

I don’t have the vigor to describe. Reticence is a disease
I’ve suffered from throughout my life. Without family,
I don’t know what it means to live as myself, and, so,
I hide in the reflection of others, which, after all, others love:
people care more about themselves than a friend’s mother.

I mean, how does one explain to someone who’s not family
how you now see the patterns into which a parent would sew
a quilt to lay over a child, the child neither hip to love
nor Hayden’s “austere and lonely offices”? My mother’s
silence seems like indifference except I know the disease,

which changes our relationship, the parent and child; I sow
healing from my memory of how she taught me to love,
not knowing her movement through a day as a mother,
as someone whose sole gig was to keep me alive, free of disease
and, whenever possible, embarrassment. But now, family

means playing the parent; I’m still just a son, writing about love,
but, lowering my eyes from the trauma, I lift her body, her disease,
for a shower, straining under all the love she sowed.

Source: Poetry (November 2023)