Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EST January 17th 2025

28 Comments

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Another Antipastoral” by Vievee Francis, posted below.

Our prompt was: Begin with “My curious tale...”

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Please join us for our next session Friday January 24th at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Another Antipastoral by Vievee Francis

I want to put down what the mountain has awakened.


My mouthful of grass.
My curious tale. I want to stand still but find myself moved patch by patch.
There's a bleat in my throat. Words fail me here. Can you understand? I sink 
   to
my knees tired or not. I now know the ragweed from the goldenrod, and the
   blinding
beauty of green. Don't you see? I am shedding my skins. I am a paper hive, a 
   wolf spider,
the creeping ivy, the ache of a birch, a heifer, a doe. I have fallen from my 
   dream
of progress: the clear-cut glass, the potted and balconied tree, the lemon-
   waxed
wood over a marbled pillar, into my own nocturne. The lullabies I had 
   forgotten.
How could I know what slept inside? What would rend my fantasies to cud 
   and up
from this belly's wet straw-strewn field—

                                                                                these soundings.

Copyright Credit: Vievee Francis, "Another Antipastoral" from Forest Primeval.  
Source: Forest Primeval (TriQuarterly Books, 2016)

28 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EST January 17th 2025”

  1. Ella Mae Masamayor's avatar Ella Mae Masamayor

    Hi, everyone! Here’s my curious tale 🙂

    My curious tale is that I binge-watched all four seasons of The Good Place in five days. That’s on top of work and all the inconveniences of adulthood. I didn’t think I had enough youth in me to binge-watch anything. Binge-watching is the thing of college dorm rooms, lonely weekends, and slumber parties.

    And yet here I am, crying bucketloads of tears I didn’t think I’d shed from tired eyes that stayed up too late. It’s amazing where and how your attention takes you. Attention is a resource, a tool, a superpower, and ultimately, a choice.

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  2. al3793's avatar al3793

    My Curious Tale
    I was sure we had taken the right turn but expected to find the southern extension of the lake by then.
    It never seemed to show up.
    We bushwacked a bit to find what appeared to be a trail.
    “This must be it”, but it wasn’t.
    “The lake must be just to our east, over that ridge,” but it wasn’t.
    The thought of being lost in the Rocky Mountains Brought a lump to my throat.

    It was hard to swallow. I wanted to keep talking.
    The sky was ominous, towering dark grey with rumbles of thunder in the distance.
    Out of contacts, comforted only by the function of a compass and the presence of my fellow hiker.
    Two forest service workers appeared.
    They would surely help.
    “We have never walked these woods before. We are looking for unusual flora.
    But if you keep going you should find a road.”
    Their youthful legs carried them off and they disappeared.

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    • michele348's avatar michele348

      Life is a mess of circumstances. The more we venture forth, the more we seem to become confused. Sometimes all we need is comforting words, words that give us the confidence to forge ahead, to tell us that we are on the right path, and to not doubt our abilities. Just as good as a compass on the “trail of life.”

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  3. Kathleen Watt's avatar Kathleen Watt

    If I’d found the button to raise my hand, this is what I would have wanted to contribute today:

    I was lost in the poem’s sensory images until I became aware of the framing.

    The mountaintop evokes for me the MLK context—I have been to the mountaintop. And mine eyes have seen the glory…Or the oracle at the top. Or the cloud ringing Mt Sinai that produced the tablets…

    And I want to tell you what happened to me there.

    Now I find my mouth is full of grass. I want to stand still, but I don’t. I can’t. I’m a creature of instinct. I want to tell you in words, but I can’t. I find I must bleat. I find I must kneel. The things important to me now are the barest essentials of instinct. Which come in blinding beauty.

    I’m shedding the layers of what I thought I was (all the worthy beauties listed next), the ways of being I sought because they were progress over my natural self, and superior to the essence of what I am. That was all a dream. 

    Now I have fallen from the folly of that dream…into my own nocturne, my essential evening song, which I knew once but had thrown over for accomplishments, my cleverness to bring nature indoors, believing it an improvement, progress. 

    How could I have known, above the clamor or my striving, the profound depths these soundings signify. I am a natural thing. I am of nature. I am of instinct. I am of this earth and all life. I am not more. And that is everything.

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    • michele348's avatar michele348

      Oh, wow, Kathleen, amazing! We seek to be out in nature, for there is much that weighs upon our hearts and minds… to find freedom from the hardships of the world. We must first unburden ourselves, and let nature surround us in her healing arms, for she is willing. We can not “perfect” what already is perfect. We allow ourselves simply to “be” in her presence. And that is enough.

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      • watt2013kewatt's avatar watt2013kewatt

        Yes Michele, exactly, or as lit theorist Terry Gifford wrote of the Antipastoral subgenre (of course I had to look it up!), it describes “works that successfully suggest a collapse of the human/nature divide”… and is “more about the connection than the disconnections essential to the pastoral…”

        Liked by 1 person

  4. Teresa's avatar Teresa

    I shared this in the session but I will share it again. It came so fast, as if it were already written, just hiding in the shadow of the text:

    My curious tale of that night flight, of watching my body in its troubled sleep, of watching my world in its troubled waking, of watching the cat twitch in a dream and the night heron watch the stillness of the water waiting for a quiver, a flash, that signals dinner. Oh it is so cold up here and the light of the stars is dazzling. If I could let one thing fall back to the earth it would be this taint I have carried with me, this awful knowledge, that I will descend and awaken and things will never seem so clear again.

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    • michele348's avatar michele348

      Teresa, what an amazing experience… to be the observer in your life unfolding before you. To know the answers to questions before they are even asked. But then the disappointment of awakening from your dream, and the murkiness of life begins to cloud the clarity. Oh, to dream forever and hold reality off at a distance.

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    • Elizabeth's avatar Elizabeth

      So interesting how a night flight that could be so scary for some gave the gift of clarity—it demonstrates the light in the darkness that we can find.

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  5. michele348's avatar michele348

    My curious tale~~~

    Life began with cries of arrival and clenched fists,
    in an air of pure innocence and dependence on those around me…
    for sustenance, for love, for protection.

    But life does not remain stagnant… I grew, I moved out into the world…
    with its beauty, with its trauma.

    How do I make sense of this life that is sometimes unexplainable?
    Is it a test of resilience, a test of maintaining hope
    to light the dark passages that seem,
    at times, to be endless?

    My map of life seems to zig and zag, causing me
    to sometimes question my choice of direction.

    But this I know… I will find my way,
    for I will not accept the alternative.

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    • al3793's avatar al3793

      I hear an observant voice, a determine voice, a voice determined to make a difference. I like the “memory” of clenched fists and cries of arrival. Seems simple at first, but it’s not and gets more complex as life goes on. I am left with a sense of confidence.

      Thanks, Michele,

      Andre

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
    • Elizabeth's avatar Elizabeth

      Michele—your poem offers hope in the form of defiance against the traumas of life bringing us down.You will get there through your zig and zag(I like the choice of those words).

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  6. michele348's avatar michele348

    My curious tale~~~

    Life began with cries of arrival and clenched fists,
    in an air of pure innocence and dependence on those around me…
    for sustenance, for love, for protection.

    But life does not remain stagnant… I grew, I moved out into the world…
    with its beauty, with its trauma.

    How do I make sense of this life that is sometimes unexplainable?
    Is it a test of resilience, a test of maintaining hope
    to light the dark passages that seem,
    at times, to be endless?

    My map of life seems to zig and zag, causing me
    to sometimes question my choice of direction.

    But this I know… I will find my way,
    for I will not accept the alternative.

    Like

    Reply
  7. Elizabeth's avatar Elizabeth

    My curious tale…

    Down the rabbit hole I slither, inhaling cocoa powdered dirt, expelling it back into the air. It feels like the breath of life itself. On the way down I pass many fascinating creatures doing many fascinating things (eating, drinking, dancing ,and whatnot), but do not engage with them—just observe. Is this good? Bad? It’s just a fact—No judgement at all. Once I reach the bottom, I eat a snack of grass and then use my wings to fly back to terra firma. Why leave? Because it’s more than enough adventure for one day.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • michele348's avatar michele348

      What a magical rabbit hole to fall into! It sounds like the creatures below were having a “grand” time, but you were just an observer, and no judgments were passed upon their behavior. I’m glad you were able to replenish your energy before making the return. I wouldn’t want you to falter halfway up. I agree—sometimes, too much of a good thing can backfire on us. Thanks, Elizabeth, for taking us along on this neat trip!

      Like

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