We welcomed a wonderful group of 38 participants from places including the American college towns of Palo Alto, Austin, Iowa City, Villanova and Hanover and world capitals like London, Montreal and Paris, not to mention Atlanta, Bahrain and Elsah, Missouri.

Our text today was the poem “Prayer,” by Marie Howe, posted below. We entered by asking “Whom is the ‘I’ addressing?” Participants suggested the “you” might be a parent, a higher being, or even the narrator addressing herself.  As we shared our diverse ideas, one participant remarked that the poem kept changing colors. The title of the poem and the psalm-like use of couplets suggested that the “you” might be a spiritual god. Two readers compared the line “you are as close as my own breath,” to a Koran passage that addresses God as “closer than the jugular vein.”  Another participant imagined the “you” to be a writer’s muse and noted that the narrator’s struggle resembles a writer’s struggle with the creative process. We also thought about the often-expressed regret for things left unsaid and heard the “you” as someone who had died. Reflecting on the possibility that the narrator was actually addressing herself, we remarked that she seems to have mulled over these feelings many times before. We explored how the physical items like luggage linked to the trucks carrying garbage, which had a sonic resonance as well. Some people detected humor in the ending and sarcasm in the characterization of beauty products as “something more important”  than “you.” Several readers enjoyed the juxtaposition of the sacred with profane, the transcendent with the everyday.

Our prompt was: Write a story you forgot to tell. One response described moving a parent to a healthcare facility and led us through a series of factual statements. This created a sense of suspense that contrasted with the vulnerability we felt when the piece ended with a question, “Is this how it is written?” We also noticed how, although the piece was written in the present tense, it very much had a sense of past and future, echoing the Howe poem. Another piece described a young person’s interest in Jungian philosophy, and we felt the universality of dreaming of the future, as well as the humor the narrator showed while looking back at a past self. The final writing used the metaphors of music to describe the sensation of living with a “free-styling” illness. Weaving together ideas like rap and a symphony, the writer composed a sensory-filled piece that seemed to echo the aesthetic of the experience.

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.

Please join us for our next session Friday, May 29th at 7pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

Prayer
by Marie Howe

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
calls for my attention—the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage

I need to buy for the trip.
Even now I can hardly sit here

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
already screeching and banging.

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
Why do I flee from you?

My days and nights pour through me like complaints
and become a story I forgot to tell.

Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.

Originally published in “The Kingdom of Ordinary Time”, Norton 2008

A combination of new and returning participants, 35 total, joined us today, representing local (including IN, PA, NJ, NY, and OH) and international (including India, Canada, the UK, and Switzerland) perspectives. 

Our text was Poem With Disabilities by Jim Ferris, posted below. Two readers read it aloud twice. One participant acknowledged that the poem made her feel vulnerable, especially in the time of the pandemic. Others echoed this sentiment, recognizing that the poem points to the fact that we are all dis/abled in some way, either because of immigration, lack of access, inability to speak other languages, etc. Participants also pointed to the accessibility of the language in the poem, making it easier for readers to enter the poem. Several participants found the first half of the poem light, even humorous, but then noted the way the poem “pivots” in the middle: with the line “you’re reading along and suddenly everything changes,” the poem itself changes, becoming “darker” and implicating the reader in a more profound, challenging way. One participant pointed to a parallel between people and poems–they don’t always behave how we want them to and they can be difficult to access, but they’re worth the trouble of trying.

Our prompt was “Write about a time when your angle of vision jumped.” Four participants shared their writing, inspiring a rich array of responses from the listeners. One sharer reminded us that we can just show up and be ourselves, even if we originally had feelings of insecurity; this reader likened the Zoom gallery view to ducks in a row, forever changing how we see ourselves in a Zoom meeting. Another reader wrote how “someone switched the lenses in my eyeglasses without giving me an eye exam,” when sharing her writing about her grandfather’s sudden terminal diagnosis. Another sharer constructed a poem that included three heaps, three onlookers, and three perspectives; it was full of struggle, victory, and failure. The final reader wrote about how unprepared she really was when she recently started working as a substitute teacher, likening the concept of adolescence to the theme of the poem. As we were saying our goodbyes, one participant wrote in the chat box that today’s session was a “Happy meal for thought.” A good note to end on a rainy Saturday.

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.

Please join us for our next session Wednesday, May 27th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

Poems with Disabilities
         By Jim Ferris

I'm sorry—this space is reserved
for poems with disabilities. I know
it's one of the best spaces in the book,
but the Poems with Disabilities Act
requires us to make all reasonable
accommodations for poems that aren't
normal. There is a nice space just
a few pages over—in fact (don't
tell anyone) I think it's better
than this one, I myself prefer it.
Actually I don't see any of those
poems right now myself, but you never know
when one might show up, so we have to keep
this space open. You can't always tell
just from looking at them either. Sometimes
they'll look just like a regular poem
when they roll in . . . you're reading along
and suddenly everything
changes, the world tilts
a little, angle of vision
jumps, your entrails aren’t
where you left them. You
remember your aunt died
of cancer at just your age
and maybe yesterday's twinge means
something after all. Your sloppy,
fragile heart beats
a little faster
and then you know.
You just know:
the poem
is right
where it
belongs.

Many thanks to all who joined us Thursday evening for our session!  It has been heartening to welcome back so many returning participants, and exciting to keep seeing new faces each time we gather for this work online, with visitors from so many different places. 

The text for this session was “won’t you celebrate with me” by National Book Award winning poet, Lucille Clifton (posted below).  It was a phenomenal conversation starter and participants quickly began to offer observations and reflections on the personal connections they made to Clifton’s words and the layered and complex meanings that unfolded in our close reading.  Many commented on whether the opening question posed in the poem was one of amicable invitation, incensed demand, or a timid plea, or perhaps some mix of those emotions and motivations.  

As we explored the lines and phrases further, some found themselves drawn into the absence of capitalization, sharing that this artistic choice could signal Clifton’s attempt to “flatten” the dominant and oppressive voices that may have disregarded or excluded her perspective in the past.  Others engaged with the imagery in the poem and considered the relevance of “starshine and clay” as places to be caught between.  We also questioned how “one hand holding tight to my other hand” could be an action of self-care and support, or a description of praying in desperation, or a self-restraint to prevent lashing out at repeated perpetrators of injustice.

In writing to the prompt, “Write about the bridges you travel on”, many shared thoughts about where their particular journey over a metaphorical bridge had led them to and the direction through time it had taken them in.  More than one participant opened our minds to the possibilities of considering the bridge as a three dimensional space, writing about who and what may exist underneath, above, and alongside our bridges.  As always, we were grateful to have so many responses shared and to witness the genuine admiration participants expressed to one another about their work and the connections their writing revealed back to the original text.

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.

Please join us for our next session Saturday, May 23rd at 2pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

Won’t You Celebrate With Me 
by Lucille Clifton 


won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

Lucille Clifton, “won’t you celebrate with me” from Book of Light. Copyright © 1993 by Lucille Clifton. 

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

Our text was an excerpt from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, posted below.

Our prompt was: Take us on a walk through a memory.

A warm thank you to the mixture of familiar faces and new ones from around the globe — from India to Italy, from Beirut to Bahrain — who attended our session! The U.S. states were also well represented, including California, Iowa, Texas, Florida and Massachusetts. At least eight people were attending for the first time. (Welcome!)

We read an excerpt from Ocean Vuong’s book On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and together found wonderful layers of meaning. Many of us thought about what we mean when we talk about “prayer” and how that word can take us beyond the usual definitions. One participant talked about a pure transcendentalism in the fourth paragraph, and another saw allusions to multiple religions: the overtly Muslim prayer, but also a Buddhist notion of the walk and a Christian nod with blood. A third found sounds suggesting the wind of God, contrasting with the creatures on the ground where we live. We also noticed the sounds of the narrator’s walk and the references to the body: the skin, the blood and especially the intriguing phrase “as if the tongue was the smallest arm from which a word like that could be offered.” (Several people mentioned that they plan to pursue more of Vuong’s work. A recent conversation between Vuong and Krista Tippett can be heard on the On Being podcast.)

Our writing prompt – “Take us on a walk through a memory” – drew a variety of responses, many of which mingled the abstract and the concrete. Some participants played with alliteration, repetition, movement, and rhythm in their writing, while others incorporated imagery, changes in temporality, and even lyrics in Farsi. Several participants gave their writings titles, which was a unique change from previous workshops. Many others, like Vuong, used their writing to bring experience into understanding, recalling “memories tinted with the reality of now,” and discovering through their writing where “the sacred” lies.

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.

Please join us for our next session Thursday, May 21st at 7pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, excerpt by Ocean Vuong

Back in Hartford, I used to wander the streets at night by myself. Sleepless, I’d get dressed, climb through the window— and just walk.

Some nights I would hear an animal shuffling, unseen, behind garbage bags, or the wind unexpectedly strong overhead, a rush of leaves clicking down, the scrape of branches from a maple out of sight. But mostly, there were only my footsteps on the pavement steaming with fresh rain, the scent of decade- old tar, or the dirt on a baseball field under a few stars, the gentle brush of grass on the soles of my Vans on a highway median.

But one night I heard someone praying.

Through the lightless window of a street- level apartment, a man’s voice in Arabic. I recognized the word Allah. I knew it was a prayer by the tone he used to lift it, as if the tongue was the smallest arm from which a word like that could be offered. I imagined it floating above his head as I sat there on the curb, waiting for the soft clink I knew was coming. I wanted the word to fall, like a screw in a guillotine, but it didn’t. His voice, it went higher and higher, and my hands, they grew pinker with each inflection. I watched my skin intensify until, at last, I looked up— and it was dawn. It was over. I was blazed in the blood of light.

Salat al- fajr: a prayer before sunrise. “Whoever prays the dawn prayer in congregation,” said the Prophet Muhammad, “it is as if he had prayed the whole night long.”

I want to believe, walking those aimless nights, that I was praying. For what I’m still not sure. But I always felt it was just ahead of me. That if I walked far enough, long enough, I would find it— perhaps even hold it up, like a tongue at the end of its word.

(c) 2019 Penguin Press/Ocean Vuong

A combination of new and returning participants, 31 total, joined us today, representing local (IN, IA, OR, CT, NJ, NY, CA WA and MI) and international (India, Canada, Italy, the UK, Morocco, Switzerland and Spain) perspectives. 

Our text was a page of six panels from cartoonist Roz Chast’s book Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? posted below. Three readers, each representing a voice in the cartoon panel sequence, read it aloud twice. One workshop participant identified a missing voice: that of the mother who was present only as the object of care. Themes discussed included the assumptive inaccuracy of classifying caretaking as “dirty work” and the proposal of caretaking as honorable,  the cyclical nature of the parent/child relationship, the intersectionality of race and gender, the tensions between self-care and care for others, and the movement through layers of time. Readers identified with the portrayal of conflicting emotions.

Our prompt “Write or draw good hands” brought us from the visually particular (tending wounds of a dirty old tomcat, white knuckles, making chicken soup, prayer beads) to the universal (holding space, comfort, goodness, visualization, caregiving at a cost, an incantation like a prayer). Accessing an emotional intergenerational space, one participant wrote, “Now is the time for holding hands,” an affirmation that seemed not only to capture the mood of the moment, but also to remind us that even a Zoom across the internet can feel like a room of care. The summarizing comment noted with wonder that the small frames of an artist’s work can hold us secure together for a moment in the great cosmos.

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. If you chose to draw, your are welcome to share as well, simply email your visual file to narrativemedicine@columbia.edu and we will add and credit it to the post here.

Please join us for our next session Wednesday, May 20th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!