Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Destruction” by Joanne Kyger from A Book of Luminous Things, Czeslaw Milosz, Editor, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about going through it.”

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 February 5th at 6pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"Destruction" by Joanne Kyger from A Book of Luminous Things, Czeslaw Milosz, Editor

First of all do you remember the way a bear goes through 
a cabin when nobody is home? He goes through 
the front door. I mean he really goes through it. Then 
he takes the cupboard off the wall and eats a can of lard.

He eats all the apples, limes, dates, bottled decaffeinated 
coffee, and 35 pounds of granola. The asparagus soup cans 
fall to the floor. Yum! He chomps up Norwegian crackers 
stashed for the winter. And the bouillon, salt, pepper, 
paprika, garlic, onions, potatoes.

		                   He rips the Green Tara
poster from the wall. Tries the Coleman Mustard. Spills 
the ink, tracks in the flour. Goes up stairs and takes 
a shit. Rips open the water bed, eats the incense and 
drinks the perfume. Knocks over the Japanese tansu 
and the Persian miniature of a man on horseback watching 
a woman bathing.

	               Knocks Shelter, Whole Earth Catalouge, 
Planet Drum, Northern Mists, Truck Tracks, and 
Women’s Sports into the oozing water bed mess.
			                      He goes
down stairs and out the back wall. He keeps on going 
for a long way and finds a good cave to sleep it all off.
Luckily he ate the whole medicine cabinet, including stash 
of LSD, Peyote, Psilocybin, Amanita, Benzedrine, Valium 
and aspirin. 

Credit: Milosz, Czeslaw, ed. A Book of Luminous Things (1997). Harcourt, Brace & Company.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “The Earth” by Sheila Black, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a moment of unexpected connection.”

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 February 2nd at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"The Earth" by Sheila Black

What can I tell her over breakfast when she says
her son suffers from madness, and because there
is no mental health, he has ended up in jail,
and she is relieved, because at least he might
be safe there or he might get to see the doctor.
We are eating egg-white omelets; we are counting
carbs. We are buttoning ourselves in our clean dresses
and high-heeled shoes in order to bring home the bacon,
doing what we need to do and “It is what it is.”
Her granddaughter and daughter are living with her
in the one bedroom. Nights, the daughter lounges by
the pool, looking at her phone, while she teaches the child
to plant seeds in a flower bed she feels bad she does not own.
She tells she cried in the car coming here; she did not know
me then. She thought we would be talking to each other
the whole time about what we are selling, what
the other might buy, but somehow we left that behind
over the toast with the tiny pots of strawberry jam.
Who can explain all this luxury, all this despair?
Or how we all hold our secret shames so close
and gloss our lips with “Cinnamon Fire” as if that were
some legitimate form of protection. Cinnamon Fire!
She just turned fifty. I tell her wait ten years—you
won’t know more, but you will get closer to forgiving,
because it is all happening on a wheel that spins
so fast. Why not stop to look at the pink flowers
you’ve planted with your granddaughter? Why not feel
your bare toes in the good wet earth? We play with the crusts
on our plates. The waitress takes the coffee away. We
are strangers again, each carrying our lonely fear
our children won’t find their way, wishing for them
some inner logic—sacred trust of earth and self, that exists
for each of us so far within, so far under the skin, we
can’t even begin to say what it is made of; it merely is,
poised between love and grief: the blue space we call wonder,
which is merely the dew on the grass, the shadow the sun
makes as it rolls over the vast skin of the Earth.

Copyright © 2023 by Sheila Black. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 28, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets. 

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at “Never One Thing ” by May Erlewine, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Start with ‘I am…’”

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 January 26th at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Lyrics : Never One Thing. By May Erlewine


I'm the underbelly, I am the claw

Never one thing no, not one thing at all

I'm a street fighter, I'm a prayer for peace

I'm a holy roller, I'm a honey bee


I am the truth, I am a lie

I am the ground, I am the sky

I am the silence, I am the call

Never one thing no, not one thing at all


I'm the underbelly, I am the claw

Never one thing no, not one thing at all

I'm a street fighter, I'm a prayer for peace

I'm a holy roller, I'm a honey bee


I am hope, I am defeat

I am broken, I am complete

I am the grace, I am the fall

Never one thing no, not one thing at all


I'm the underbelly, I am the claw

Never one thing no, not one thing at all

I'm a street fighter, I'm a prayer for peace

I'm a holy roller, I'm a honey bee


I am the beggar, I am the queen

I am the end, I am the means

I am the hammer, I am the wall

Never one thing no, not one thing at all


I'm the underbelly, I am the claw

Never one thing no, not one thing at all

I'm a street fighter, I'm a prayer for peace

I'm a holy roller, I'm a honey bee


I am a victor, I am the loss

I am a profit, I am the cost

I am the salve, I am the sting

Never, no never, no never one thing


I'm the underbelly, I am the claw

Never one thing no, not one thing at all

I'm a street fighter, I'm a prayer for peace

I'm a holy roller, I'm a honey bee


I am a mother, I am the child

I am the meek, I am the wild

I am the witch, I am the saint

I am alive, never one thing


I'm the underbelly, I am the claw

Never one thing no, not one thing at all

I'm a street fighter, I'm a prayer for peace

I'm a holy roller, I'm a honey bee


I am the lion, I am the swan

I am the bull, I am the fawn

I am a woman, I am the ring

I am my own, never one thing


I'm the underbelly, I am the claw

Never one thing no, not one thing at all

I'm a street fighter, I'm a prayer for peace

I'm a holy roller, I'm a honey bee


Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Tyler Andrew Duncan

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the painting “Resurgence of the People” by Kent Monkman, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Start with ‘A community is..’”

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 January 19th at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

“Resurgence of the People” by Kent Monkman

Kent Monkman (Cree, b. 1965). Resurgence of the People, 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 132 x 264 in. (335.28 x 670.6 cm).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Donald R. Sobey Foundation CAF Canada Project Gift, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Variation on the Word Sleep” by Margaret Atwood, posted below.

Our prompt was: “When I/you sleep…”

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

“Variation on the Word Sleep” by Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping, 
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you, 
sleeping. I would like to sleep 
with you, to enter 
your sleep as its smooth dark wave 
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent 
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves 
with its watery sun & three moons 
towards the cave where you must descend, 
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver 
branch, the small white flower, the one 
word that will protect you 
from the grief at the center 
of your dream, from the grief 
at the center. I would like to follow 
you up the long stairway 
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands 
to where your body lies 
beside me, and you enter 
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

From Selected Poems II: 1976-1986 by Margaret Atwood. Copyright © 1987 by Margaret Atwood.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Bluebird” by Charles Bukowski, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about the bluebird in your heart.”

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 January 8th at 6pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

“Bluebird” by Charles Bukowski

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

This was published in Bukowski’s book “The Last Night of the Earth Poems” circa 1992© by owner.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “The Traveling Onion” by Naomi Shihab Nye, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a small forgotten miracle.”

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 Wednesday December 20th at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

“The Traveling Onion” by Naomi Shihab Nye

“It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt it was an 
object of worship —why I haven’t been able to find out. From Egypt the onion 
entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe.” — Better Living Cookbook

When I think how far the onion has traveled
just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise
all small forgotten miracles,
crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,
pearly layers in smooth agreement,
the way the knife enters onion
and onion falls apart on the chopping block,
a history revealed.
And I would never scold the onion
for causing tears.
It is right that tears fall
for something small and forgotten.
How at meal, we sit to eat,
commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma
but never on the translucence of onion,
now limp, now divided,
or its traditionally honorable career:
For the sake of others,
disappear.

Naomi Shihab Nye, “The Traveling Onion” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Orlando” by Megan Fernandes, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a road not taken.”

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 December 18th at 6pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"Orlando" by Megan Fernandes

The few weeks I was pregnant, whenever people asked
how are you, meg? I’d answer, oh ya know… with child
which I thought was dead funny. I don’t think about it now
except sometimes in a fitness class surrounded by women
trying to shed baby weight and I make the calculations,
(he’d be about fourteen by now) and then I look at myself
in the class mirror while women squat and lift their legs
and think, wow!, I look so good for having a fourteen
year old and then I’d think again, how if he was a reality,
I’d say it all the time and embarrass him in front of his
school friends and for some reason, I think he’d be
a drummer and wear green. I have no regrets,
but I wonder if he’s waiting in the sky somewhere
or doing blow in another dimension where he’s a rocker
and very much flesh. I don’t believe in kin by blood,
but I believe poems can give form to the formless,
that one can resurrect roads not taken in a line
and give it a name. It’s a novel by Virginia Woolf, I’d say
and rattle on and he’d wave me off but maybe read it
one day in college and think about his young mother
who wanted to be a writer and what she might have had
to give up in order to raise him at twenty-three.
He’d write me a song. He’d title it with my name.

Credit: Megan Fernandes. The Nation