Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read excerpt from Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a memory of water.”

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

The hardest thing in the world is to live only once.

But it’s beautiful here, even the ghosts agree. Mornings, when the light rinses this place the shade of oatmeal, they rise as mist over the rye across the tracks and stumble toward the black-spired pines searching for their names, names that no longer live in any living thing’s mouth. Our town is raised up from a scab of land along a river in New England. When the prehistoric glaciers melted, the valley became a world-sized lake, and when that dried up it left a silvery trickle along the basin called the Connecticut: Algonquin for “long tidal river.” The sediment here is rich with every particle welcoming to life. As you approach, you’ll be flanked by wide stretches of thumb-sized buds shooting lucent through April mud. Within months these saplings will stand as packed rows of broadleaf tobacco and silver queen corn. Beyond the graveyard whose stones have lost their names to years, there’s a covered bridge laid over a dried-up brook whose memory of water never reached this century. Cross that and you’ll find us. Turn right at Conway’s Sugar Shack, gutted and shuttered, with windows blown out and the wooden sign that reads WE SWEETEN SOON AS THE CROCUS BLOOM, rubbed to braille by wind. In spring the cherry blossoms foam across the county from every patch of green unclaimed by farms or strip malls. They came to us from centuries of shit, dropped over this place by geese whenever summer beckons their hollow bones north.

excerpt from Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read an excerpt from “Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about what is lost in the taking?”

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 9th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange excerpt from pg. 83

Well he’s only got the one eye, but it’s got more life in it than I’ve seen in some men with two. And I’ve seen worse when they know what they want and they’re hungry for it, white men in this country, they come to take everything, even themselves, they have taken so much they have lost themselves in the taking, and what will be left of such a nation once they are done? My mother once said, “A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is finished, no matter how brave its warriors, or how strong their weapons.” I wondered about the women’s hearts on the ground. And I wondered about American women. White women. Where were their hearts? I take solace in knowing my heart is still in my chest, that yours is in there too, beating like a drum waiting for its dancer, keeping me on my feet, ready for a rhythm, ready for what’s next, because what’s next is always coming.

Your father had a harder time at the school, because he was a boy but also because of his freckles, which he had on account of him being a half-breed, which meant he got it bad from both sides. No one wanted him because he didn’t seem like he belonged enough on either side.

Sometimes the look on his face got so bad it seemed to be saying he didn’t even belong to himself, did not even want to belong to himself.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange p. 83

Credit: Tommy Orange

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at a graphic image from “R E S E M B L A N C E / 與” by Jonathan C Chou, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about seeing without understanding.”

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 2nd at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

From R E S E M B L A N C E / 與 by Jonathan C Chou

Credit: Jonathan C Chou

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read an excerpt from the book “There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job” by Kikuko Tsumura, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about unwritten rules.”

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

Credit: Kikuko Tsumura, Polly Barton (Translator)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “We” by Joshua Bennett, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about what’s worth paying attention to.”

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

We by Joshua Bennett

The money of  the mind is attention, maybe.

Which is not, initially, where I thought I’d begin,

but we’re already here now, using the language

of care and economy, though God-talk was truly

my first way in. Sustained attention is how we approach

a flesh and blood experience of the Divine I say to the

therapist nodding her head, only moments after

we disagree over whether her dress is coral or yellow

-based red, as opposed, of course, to a blue-based

red, like the square on her tartan scarf. My jacket

is the color of snow on television. My eyes

are as brown as my father’s when he lifted a stranger

off the ground he saw through the driver’s side window

beating a woman on Broadway. I am almost the age now

he was then, and am still studying the difference between

what a man proclaims in speech and what he says with his

body. Tomorrow marks another year on Earth for his third

son, and he is a father now, with a boy he is trying to teach

the benefits of apprehension. Who instead prefers to walk

on his hands, leap from the playground slide, climb

on countertops to watch TV from another room entirely.

Where does my influence, my aspiration, end and the child

begin? Who refashions the cosmos with his laughter.

Source: Poetry (May 2025)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Seated Beside Iggy at a Dinner Party” by Anne Tannam, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about diving in.”

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

Seated Beside Iggy at a Dinner Party by Anne Tannam

It's hard not to feel intimidated. After all, this is
   the man who invented the stage dive, bare-chested 

haloed father of punk rock, ecstatic, bloodied, wing-torn
   Icarus, resurrected, strutting his tail feathers, embracing 

the legend of the fall. Puts you in mind of your mother,
   who, on her sixtieth birthday, skydived from a height

of ten thousand feet, the crack of her ankle breaking
   heralded her triumphant descent, into the family hall of fame.

You wait until they've served dessert, a rich chocolate 
   ganache tart, garnished with the season's first strawberries,

before turning to glance sideways at his face, its hush
   of concentration, each spoonful manna from heaven lifted 

reverently to his lips, rapt expression a cross between Tiny
   Tim's and Scrooge's as they feasted on the ghost of second 

chances and the promise of Christmas all year round. Swivelling
   in your seat, you clear your throat; it's now or never.

When will you again get the chance to crack the code
   of how to live like tomorrow is a conspiracy 

of the imagination? He puts down his spoon, like he's got 
   all day, waits for you to form the words. If you don’t

mind me asking, your face reddening, how do you 
do it; how do you live like you're never going to die?

He gestures to your untouched plate: the scalloped 
   pastry's golden crust, the heady marriage of chocolate

and cream, the curvaceous blush of summer fruit. A gift 
   from the gods, he says, beckoning: go on, dive in.

Credit: Anne Tannam

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the painting “Touch” by Rembrandt, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about pain anticipated.”

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

Touch by Rembrandt

Libby, Alexandra, Ilona van Tuinen, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. “Allegory of Hearing, Allegory of Smell, Allegory of Touch, from The Series of the Five Senses” (2017). . In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 4th ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Elizabeth Nogrady with Caroline Van Cauwenberge. New York, 2023–. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/stone-operation/ (accessed May 05, 2025).

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a an excerpt from the play “Molly Sweeney” by Brian Friel, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a period of difficult change.”

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 May 5th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

An excerpt from the play Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel.

Credit: Brian Friel

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Characteristics of Life” by Camille T. Dungy, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write of an impossible hope.”

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 April 28th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Characteristics of Life  by Camille T. Dungy

A fifth of animals without backbones could be at risk of extinction, say scientists.
—BBC Nature News

       Ask me if I speak for the snail and I will tell you
I speak for the snail.
                         I speak of underneathedness
and the welcome of mosses,
                                       of life that springs up,
little lives that pull back and wait for a moment.
 
I speak for the damselfly, water skeet, mollusk,
the caterpillar, the beetle, the spider, the ant.
                                                       I speak
from the time before spinelessness was frowned upon.
 
Ask me if I speak for the moon jelly. I will tell you
                       one thing today and another tomorrow
       and I will be as consistent as anything alive
on this earth.
 
                       I move as the currents move, with the breezes.
What part of your nature drives you? You, in your cubicle
ought to understand me. I filter and filter and filter all day.
 
Ask me if I speak for the nautilus and I will be silent
as the nautilus shell on a shelf. I can be beautiful
and useless if that's all you know to ask of me.
 
Ask me what I know of longing and I will speak of distances
       between meadows of night-blooming flowers.
                                                       I will speak
                       the impossible hope of the firefly.
 
                                               You with the candle
burning and only one chair at your table must understand
       such wordless desire.
 
                               To say it is mindless is missing the point.

Copyright Credit: "Characteristics of Life” from Trophic Cascade © 2017 by Camille Dungy. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.
Source: Trophic Cascade (Wesleyan University Press, 2017)