Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem First Fall by Maggie Smith, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Write an introduction to a season or Write about knowing it will come back.“

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

First Fall by Maggie Smith

I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark
morning streets, I point and name.
Look, the sycamores, their mottled,
paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves
rusting and crisping at the edges.
I walk through Schiller Park with you
on my chest. Stars smolder well
into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,
the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.
Fall is when the only things you know
because I’ve named them
begin to end. Soon I’ll have another
season to offer you: frost soft
on the window and a porthole
sighed there, ice sleeving the bare
gray branches. The first time you see
something die, you won’t know it might
come back. I’m desperate for you
to love the world because I brought you here.

Credit: poetryfoundation.org
Maggie Smith, "First Fall" from Good Bones.  
Copyright © 2017 by Maggie Smith.  

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read an excerpt from “Whereas Statements” by Layli Long Soldier, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “ Whereas…”

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 October 17th at 6 pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Excerpt from “Whereas Statements” by Layli Long Soldier

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at photos from a series titled Bedside Manner by Corrine Botz, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Write who is seen.”

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 October 10th at 6 pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Bedside Manner by Corrine Botz

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we look a close look at the short animation film titled “Bitzbutz” by Gil Alkabetz , posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Write or draw a time you felt eaten up inside.”

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

“Bitzbutz” by Gil Alkabetz

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver , posted below. 

Our prompt was: “In a few words, name what is difficult to put into words.”

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 October 3rd at 6 pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go

© Back Bay Books, 1983.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read an excerpt from “Man Camp” by Claire Boyles, from her book of short stories titled Site Fidelity, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Write about cocky absolute certainty. ”

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 September 30th at 12 pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

An excerpt from “Man Camp” by Claire Boyles

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem A Green Crab’s Shell by Mark Doty , posted below. 

Our prompt was: “ Write about your shell. ”

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

A Green Crab’s Shell by Mark Doty

Not, exactly, green:
closer to bronze
preserved in kind brine,

something retrieved
from a Greco-Roman wreck,
patinated and oddly

muscular. We cannot
know what his fantastic
legs were like—

though evidence
suggests eight
complexly folded

scuttling works
of armament, crowned
by the foreclaws'

gesture of menace
and power. A gull's
gobbled the center,

leaving this chamber
—size of a demitasse—
open to reveal

a shocking, Giotto blue.
Though it smells
of seaweed and ruin,

this little traveling case
comes with such lavish lining!
Imagine breathing

surrounded by
the brilliant rinse
of summer's firmament.

What color is
the underside of skin?
Not so bad, to die,

if we could be opened
into this—
if the smallest chambers

of ourselves,
similarly,
revealed some sky.

Credit: poets.org

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we look a close look at the painting See You On the Other Side by  Matthew Wong (2019), posted below. 

Our prompt was: “ Write about where you stand. ”

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 September 19th at 6 pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

See You On the Other Side by  Matthew Wong (2019)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem Wildflowers by H.E. Fisher, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “ When I was little…. ”

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

Wildflowers by H.E. Fisher