Our prompt was: โWrite about a conversation that never happened.โ
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Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
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Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!
For this session we read an excerpt “The person in the picture” from Ersi Sotiropoulouโs collection of short stories, The Art of Feeling Nothing (ฮฮคฮญฯฮฝฮทฮฝฮฑ ฮผฮทฮฝฮฮนฯฮธฮฌฮฝฮตฯฮฑฮนฮคฮฏฯฮฟฯฮฑ) Translated by Vinia Ntakari, posted below.
Our prompt was: โThere is a picture of me ...โ
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Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), 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 youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
"The person in the picture" an excerpt from Ersiย Sotiropoulouโsย collection of short stories, The Art of Feeling Nothingย (ฮฮคฮญฯฮฝฮทฮฝฮฑย ฮผฮทฮฝฮฮนฯฮธฮฌฮฝฮตฯฮฑฮนฮคฮฏฯฮฟฯฮฑ) Translated byย Vinia
There is a picture of me in Madourรญ.*ย 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.ย
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.
ย
(*ย a small uninhabited island in the Ionian Sea, near Lefkada, Greece.)
Our prompt was:ย โWrite about standing out in a crowd.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), 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 youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
"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
โthese lettuces,
bunches of carrotsโ
only you
lived through
the sea's truth, survived
the unknown, the
unfathomable
darkness, the depths
of the sea,
the great
abyss,
le grand abรฎme,
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)
Our prompt was: โWrite about the rungs on a ladder of trust.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), 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 youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
"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 corazรณn, M. replies,
thumping his chest with his closed fist.
Thatโs 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.
Itโs not my place to tell you what he shared that day.
But I can tell you how M. put his hand on B.โs back
and said, maje, desahรณgate,
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, letโs go back to class.
After handshakes and side hugs, Iโm left alone in the small room
with a box of unopened tissues, two starburst wrappers on the ground.
Copyright ยฉ 2021 by Benjamin Gucciardi.
Our prompt was:ย โWrite about what happens when waiting.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), 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 youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
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
Our prompt was: โWrite about the nature of things.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), 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 youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
"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 wordโ
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 alsoโthough there has never been
A critical treeโabout the nature of things.
Credit: poetrynook.com
Our prompt was: โWrite about noticing something missing.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), 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 youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
"Body without the 'd' " by Justice Ameer
the boโy wakes up
the boโy looks at itself
the boโy notices something missing
there is both too much and not enough flesh on the boโy
the boโy is covered in hair
what a hairy boโy
some makes it look more like a boโy
some makes it look more like a monster
the boโy did not learn to shave from its father
so it taught itself how to graze its skin and cut things off
the boโy cuts itself by accident
the blood reminds the boโy it is a boโy
reminds the boโy how a boโy bleeds
reminds the boโy that not every boโy bleeds
the boโy talks to a girl about bleeding
she explains how this boโy works
this boโy is different from hers
boโy has too much and not enough flesh to be her
the biology of a boโy is just
boโy will only ever be a boโy
the boโy is Black
so the boโy is and will only ever be a boโy
the boโy couldnโt be a man if it tried
the boโy tried
the boโy feels empty
the boโy feels like it will only ever be empty
the boโy feels that it will never hold the weight of another boโy inside of it
no matter how many ds fit inside the boโy
the boโy is a hollow facade
it attempts a convincing veneer
boโy dressesโโโwhat hips on the boโy
boโy paints its faceโโโwhat lips on the boโy
boโy adorns itself with labels written for lovelier frames
what a beautiful boโy
still a boโy
but a fierce boโy now
a royal boโy now
a boโy worthy of being called queen
what a dazzling ruse
to turn a boโy into a lie everyone loves to look at
the boโy looks at itself
the boโy sees all the gawking at its gloss
the boโy hears all the masses asking for its missing
the boโy offers all of its letters
โโโ b โ for the birth
โโโ o โ for the operation
โโโ y โ for the lack left in its genes
what this boโy would abandon
for the risk ofโ being real
the boโy is real
enough and too much
existing as its own erasure
โโwhat an elusive dโโ
evading removal
avoiding recognition
leaving just a boโy
that is never lost
but canโt be found
Source: Poetry (November 2018)
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), 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 youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Our prompt was:ย โWrite about when words fail.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), 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 youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
"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.
