Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we viewed the painting “Flight of the Swallows” by John Henry Lorimer, posted below.

Our prompt was: “The others were so excited but I…” 

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 30th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

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Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Sorrow Is Not My Name” by Ross Gay, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about what keeps you from sorrow.”

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 23rd at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

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"Sorrow Is Not My Name" by Ross Gay

       —after Gwendolyn Brooks

No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color's green. I'm spring.

      —for Walter Aikens

Copyright © 2011 by Ross Gay. 
Source: Bringing the Shovel Down (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Finale” by Pablo Neruda, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a sea of renewal.”

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

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"Finale" by Pablo Neruda

Matilde, years or days
sleeping, feverish, 
here or there,
gazing off,
twisting my spine,   
bleeding true blood,   
perhaps I awaken
or am lost, sleeping:
hospital beds, foreign windows,
white uniforms of the silent walkers,
the clumsiness of feet.

And then, these journeys   
and my sea of renewal:   
your head on the pillow,   
your hands floating
in the light, in my light,   
over my earth.
It was beautiful to live   
when you lived!

The world is bluer and of the earth   
at night, when I sleep
enormous, within your small hands.

Source: The Sea and the Bells (City Lights Books, 2002)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Love After Love ” by Derek Walcott, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about finding yourself (again).”

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 6th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

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“Love After Love ” by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

credit: all poetry.com

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the painting “Self-portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States, 1932” by Frida Kahlo, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about inhabiting two worlds.”

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

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“Self-portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States, 1932” by Frida Kahlo

© Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read an excerpt “Knoxville: Summer 1915 ” from A Death in the Family by James Agee, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about what enchants your ears.”

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 15th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

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“Knoxville: Summer 1915 ” from A Death in the Family by James Agee

Now is the night one blue dew, my father has drained, he has coiled the hose. 

Low on the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes. 

Content, silver, like peeps of light, each cricket makes his comment 

  over and over in the drowned grass. 

A cold toad thumpily flounders. 

Within the edges of damp shadows of side yards are hovering children 

  nearly sick with joy of fear, who watch the unguarding of a telephone pole. 

Around white carbon corner lamps bugs of all sizes are lifted elliptic, 

  solar systems. Big hardshells bruise themselves, assailant: he is fallen on his back, legs squiggling. 

Parents on porches: rock and rock: From damp strings morning glories: 

  hang their ancient faces. 

The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “All the Words I Can Remember Are Poems” by Michelle Peñalozachelle, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Ask a question about the world.”

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 11th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

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“All the Words I Can Remember Are Poems” by Michelle Peñalozachelle

Source: Poetry (July/August 2023)

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.

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 "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.

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“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.

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"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.)