Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “For What Binds Us” by Jane Hirshfield, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about what is contained in a scar.”

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 August 14th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

 "For What Binds Us" by Jane Hirshfield

There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down—
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh,
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest—

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.

Jane Hirshfield, "For What Binds Us" from Of Gravity & Angels. Copyright © 1988 by Jane Hirshfield and reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

Source: Of Gravity & Angels (Wesleyan University Press, 1988)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look a the painting “Round Hill, 1977” by Alex Katz, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a conversation that never happened.”

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 11th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

“Round Hill, 1977″ by Alex Katz

© Alex Katz/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

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)