Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read an excerpt “The person in the picture” from Ersi Sotiropoulou’s collection of short stories, The Art of Feeling Nothing (ΗΤέχνηνα μηνΑισθάνεσαιΤίποτα) Translated by Vinia Ntakari, posted below.

Our prompt was: “There is a picture of me ...”

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 August 4th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"The person in the picture" an excerpt from Ersi Sotiropoulou’s collection of short stories, The Art of Feeling Nothing (ΗΤέχνηνα μηνΑισθάνεσαιΤίποτα) Translated by Vinia

There is a picture of me in Madourí.* I'm wearing a white t-shirt and I'm coming from the sea with a bucket full of water. I'm in the light, the sun beating down from above. I'm obviously heading to the outdoor bathroom to put the bucket back. Each of us, when finished, had to go down to the beach and refill it for the next person. 
The lens probably caught me off guard, I'm not smiling, but I don't look bothered either. In my left ear, a small earring is noticeable. Even though I remember the earring, a gold hoop, I don't feel any familiarity with the person in the picture. It's entirely me, yet simultaneously, it isn't. For some reason, I don't recognize myself. The years that have passed stand between us, a heavy cloud of friends gone, appointments missed, significant and insignificant events. A lot has happened and the person in the picture is unaware of it all.
 
(* a small uninhabited island in the Ionian Sea, near Lefkada, Greece.)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” by Pablo Neruda translated by Robin Robertson, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about standing out in a crowd.”

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 July 31st at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

 "Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market" by Pablo Neruda translated by Robin Robertson

Here,   
among the market vegetables,
this torpedo
from the ocean   
depths,   
a missile   
that swam,
now   
lying in front of me
dead.

Surrounded
by the earth's green froth   
—these lettuces,
bunches of carrots—
only you   
lived through
the sea's truth, survived
the unknown, the
unfathomable
darkness, the depths   
of the sea,
the great   
abyss,
le grand abîme,
only you:   
varnished
black-pitched   
witness
to that deepest night.

Only you:
dark bullet
barreled   
from the depths,
carrying   
only   
your   
one wound,
but resurgent,
always renewed,
locked into the current,
fins fletched
like wings
in the torrent,
in the coursing
of
the
underwater
dark,
like a grieving arrow,
sea-javelin, a nerveless   
oiled harpoon.

Dead
in front of me,
catafalqued king
of my own ocean;
once   
sappy as a sprung fir
in the green turmoil,
once seed
to sea-quake,
tidal wave, now
simply
dead remains;
in the whole market
yours   
was the only shape left
with purpose or direction
in this   
jumbled ruin
of nature;
you are   
a solitary man of war
among these frail vegetables,
your flanks and prow
black   
and slippery
as if you were still
a well-oiled ship of the wind,
the only
true
machine
of the sea: unflawed,
undefiled,   
navigating now
the waters of death.

Source: Poetry (April 2007)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “The Rungs” by Benjamin Gucciardi, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about the rungs on a ladder of trust.”

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 July 28th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

 "The Rungs" by Benjamin Gucciardi

Only the person with the green dice should be talking,
I remind the boys, holding up the oversized foam cubes.

And the others should be? Listening, K. says,
and how should we listen? Con el corazón, M. replies,

thumping his chest with his closed fist.
That’s right, I say, with the heart. Who wants to start?

The dice are passed around the circle
and the boys gloss over the check-in question.

When they reach B., who walked here, unaccompanied,
from Honduras three months ago, he holds them like boulders.

We straighten when his lip begins to quiver.
It’s not my place to tell you what he shared that day.

But I can tell you how M. put his hand on B.’s back
and said, maje, desahógate,

which translates roughly to un-drown yourself,
though no English phrase so willingly accepts

that everyone has drowned, and that we can reverse that gasping,
expel the fluids from our lungs.

I sit quietly as the boys make, with their bodies, the rungs of a ladder,
and B. climbs up from the current, sits in the sun

for a few good minutes before he jumps back in.
The dice finish the round and we are well over time.

I resist the urge to speak about rafts, what it means to float.
Good, I tell them, let’s go back to class.

After handshakes and side hugs, I’m left alone in the small room
with a box of unopened tissues, two starburst wrappers on the ground.

Copyright © 2021 by Benjamin Gucciardi.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look/listen at “Big God ” by Florence and the Machine, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about what happens when waiting.”

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 July 21st at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

“Big God ” by Florence and the Machine

You need a big god
Big enough to hold your love

You need a big god
Big enough to fill you up

You keep me up at night
To my messages, you do not reply
You know I still like you the most
The best of the best and the worst of the worst
Well, you can never know
The places that I go
I still like you the most
You’ll always be my favorite ghost

You need a big god
Big enough to hold your love
You need a big God
Big enough to fill you up

Sometimes I think it’s getting better
And then it gets much worse
Is it just part of the process?
Jesus Christ, it hurts
Though I know I should know better
Well, I can make this work
Is it just part of the process?
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, it hurts
(Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, it hurts)

You need a big god
Big enough to hold your love

You need a big god
Big enough to fill you up

Shower your affection, let it rain on me
And pull down the mountain, drag your cities to the sea
Shower your affection, let it rain on me
Don’t leave me on this white cliff
Let it slide down to the, slide down to the sea
Slide down to the, slide down to the sea

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Trees” by Howard Nemerov, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about the nature of things.”

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 July 14th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"Trees" by Howard Nemerov

To be a giant and keep quiet about it,
To stay in one's own place;
To stand for the constant presence of process
And always to seem the same;
To be steady as a rock and always trembling,
Having the hard appearance of death
With the soft, fluent nature of growth,
One's Being deceptively armored,
One's Becoming deceptively vulnerable;
To be so tough, and take the light so well,
Freely providing forbidden knowledge
Of so many things about heaven and earth
For which we should otherwise have no word—
Poems or people are rarely so lovely,
And even when they have great qualities
They tend to tell you rather than exemplify
What they believe themselves to be about,
While from the moving silence of trees,
Whether in storm or calm, in leaf and naked,
Night or day, we draw conclusions of our own,
Sustaining and unnoticed as our breath,
And perilous also—though there has never been
A critical tree—about the nature of things.

Credit: poetrynook.com

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Body without the ‘d’ ” by Justice Ameer, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about noticing something missing.”

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 July 7th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"Body without the 'd' " by Justice Ameer

the bo’y wakes up
the bo’y looks at itself
the bo’y notices something missing
there is both too much and not enough flesh on the bo’y

the bo’y is covered in hair
what a hairy bo’y
some makes it look more like a bo’y
some makes it look more like a monster

the bo’y did not learn to shave from its father
so it taught itself how to graze its skin and cut things off
the bo’y cuts itself by accident
the blood reminds the bo’y it is a bo’y
reminds the bo’y how a bo’y bleeds
reminds the bo’y that not every bo’y bleeds

the bo’y talks to a girl about bleeding
she explains how this bo’y works
this bo’y is different from hers
bo’y has too much and not enough flesh to be her
the biology of a bo’y is just
bo’y will only ever be a bo’y

the bo’y is Black
so the bo’y is and will only ever be a bo’y
the bo’y couldn’t be a man if it tried
the bo’y tried

the bo’y feels empty
the bo’y feels like it will only ever be empty
the bo’y feels that it will never hold the weight of another bo’y inside of it
no matter how many ds fit inside the bo’y

the bo’y is a hollow facade
it attempts a convincing veneer
bo’y dresses — what hips on the bo’y
bo’y paints its face — what lips on the bo’y
bo’y adorns itself with labels written for lovelier frames
what a beautiful bo’y
still a bo’y
but a fierce bo’y now
a royal bo’y now
a bo’y worthy of  being called queen
what a dazzling ruse
to turn a bo’y into a lie everyone loves to look at

the bo’y looks at itself
the bo’y sees all the gawking at its gloss
the bo’y hears all the masses asking for its missing
the bo’y offers all of its letters
— ‘ b ’ for the birth
— ‘ o ’ for the operation
— ‘ y ’ for the lack left in its genes
what this bo’y would abandon
for the risk of  being real

the bo’y is real
enough and too much
existing as its own erasure
— what an elusive d —
evading removal
avoiding recognition
leaving just a bo’y

that is never lost
but can’t be found

Source: Poetry (November 2018)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at “Morning Ritual No. 29 From the portfolio Morning Ritual” by David Lebe, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a ritual.”

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 June 26th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

“Morning Ritual No. 29″ by David Lebe

1994 Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of the artist, 2016 (2016-30-115(29)). © David Lebe

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Bird-Understander” by Craig Arnold, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about when words fail.”

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 June 23rd at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"Bird-Understander" by Craig Arnold

Of many reasons I love you here is one

the way you write me from the gate at the airport
so I can tell you everything will be alright

so you can tell me there is a bird
trapped in the terminal      all the people
ignoring it       because they do not know
what to do with it       except to leave it alone
until it scares itself to death

it makes you terribly terribly sad

You wish you could take the bird outside
and set it free or       (failing that)
call a bird-understander
to come help the bird

All you can do is notice the bird
and feel for the bird       and write
to tell me how language feels
impossibly useless

but you are wrong

You are a bird-understander
better than I could ever be
who make so many noises
and call them song

These are your own words
your way of noticing
and saying plainly
of not turning away
from hurt

you have offered them
to me       I am only
giving them back

if only I could show you
how very useless
they are not


Craig Arnold, "Bird-Understander." Copyright 2009 by Craig Arnold.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Medical History” by Eleanor Stanford, posted below.

Our prompt was a choice between: “Write about a parallel conversation.” OR Begin writing with “The pain started…”

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 June 16th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"Medical History" by Eleanor Stanford

When did the pain start?
Three weeks ago, Saturday.
Deep breath.
It comes and goes.
When did the pain—
It started with my mother.
When?
In 1979, the grey skies of São Paolo, summer a hammered 
             metal helmet.
I’m sorry. My hands are cold. Again?
In Bavaria, before I was born, when my grandfather held the four 
             tasseled corners of the world in his hands and prayed.
Other side.
In a lacquer factory in Hokkaido: the gloss, the stink, the smooth
	    reflective surface.
When?
1934. 1968. When I was five, and learned to move from one element 
            to another. Water to air. Dark to
The pain?
Stabbing. Dull. A branch extending from—
Higher?
Lower.
The pain?
Yes. A tight-stitched shawl. A lacquer bowl—
Here? Where the stomach—
burnished vessel,
meets the ilium.
Ornamental thread I don’t believe in.
Tender? 
Yes. 


Eleanor Stanford
Subtropics: The Literary Journal of the University of Florida 
Issue 19: Spring/Summer 015