Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Blue Velvet” by Eileen Chong , posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about shoes to walk in another world.”

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 9th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Blue Velvet by Eileen Chong

I bought her those shoes. I was the only one
who ever bought her shoes. I knew her
size. I knew what she liked. She’d always
picked on me, but I was the only one
who ever bought her shoes
in her size that she liked.

She had told her oldest son
that when death called
for her, she wanted to be wearing
those shoes. He said
they were house slippers, too flimsy
for her walk in the other world.

Yet in the end, afraid, he gave me
the shoes – hand-embroidered
with phoenixes decked out
in sequins, gold thread, green
beads for eyes – I sheathed
the old lady’s cold, rigid feet.

Thank god I had bought them
in blue, not red. She would not
have been allowed to be buried
in anything red. Not unless we wanted her
to come back from the dead, shuffling
in those slippers, going to the courtyard
to beat the night’s blankets
in the dawning sun.

Credit: Eileen Chong

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the painting “The Smoke” by Matthew Wong, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about being lost in deep thought.”

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 July 29th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

The Smoke by Matthew Wong

Credit: Matthew Wong

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “When We Were Whales ” by Stan Heleva, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about turning suffering into song.”

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 July 26th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

When We Were Whales by Stan Heleva

We knew nothing of the legs we had shed
As we swam in the Peruvian desert
Nor how they had become unnecessary
Not an inkling of immanent return had we, nor again why.

We had only silent ballet, no music
Turning ourselves over in the murky sun
Only to dart in to tear more flesh from our fellows
Our tusks glinting dully, our beards stained with blood.

Our name, Leviathan Melvillei, was unknown to us
And might have remained so for all the good
It has done dead whale or dead poet: we had no tune I repeat
We taught them only to cry in pain; they made of it a song.

Credit: Stan Heleva & Michelle Paul
From Michelle Pauls’ Forthcoming play, “It’s Complicated….This Gift of Life.”

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Before” by Ada Limón, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a time before.”

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 July 19th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Before by Ada Limón

No shoes and a glossy
red helmet, I rode
on the back of my dad’s
Harley at seven years old.
Before the divorce.
Before the new apartment.
Before the new marriage.
Before the apple tree.
Before the ceramics in the garbage.
Before the dog’s chain.
Before the koi were all eaten
by the crane. Before the road
between us, there was the road
beneath us, and I was just
big enough not to let go:
Henno Road, creek just below,
rough wind, chicken legs,
and I never knew survival
was like that. If you live,
you look back and beg
for it again, the hazardous
bliss before you know
what you would miss.

Copyright © 2015 by Ada Limón. Used with permission of the author.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “The Young ” by Roddy Lumsden, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about being young.”

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

"The Young " by Roddy Lumsden

You bastards! It’s all sherbet, and folly   
makes you laugh like mules. Chances   
dance off your wrists, each day ready,

sprites in your bones and spite not yet   
swollen, not yet set. You gather handful   
after miracle handful, seeing straight,

reaching the lighthouse in record time,   
pockets brim with scimitar things. Now   
is not a pinpoint but a sprawling realm.

Bewilderment and thrill are whip-quick   
twins, carried on your backs, each vow   
new to touch and each mistake a broken

biscuit. I was you. Sea robber boarding   
the won galleon. Roaring trees. Machines   
without levers, easy in bowel and lung.

One cartwheel over the quicksand curve   
of Tuesday to Tuesday and you’re gone,   
summering, a ship on the farthest wave.

Credit: Poetry (December 2008)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Against Distance” by Trey Moody, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about being one and many.”

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 June 24th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Against Distance by Trey Moody

I don’t know who needs to hear this

other than me, but the moon will never leave

you, you are good enough for the moon

and the moon is good enough for you,

because you are here and the moon is there

every time the moon is supposed to be

there, and isn’t it interesting when we want

to show up for each other we say we are

counting on it and what else but numbers

teach us we are each one, and what else

but the moon teaches us we are each many,

so when you try counting  your remaining

moments with the moon, the moon

that will never, ever leave you, give up.

Even the moon inches a little more distant

every year. I’ve heard grief is only love

with nowhere to go. But then you look up.

Credit: Poetry (May 2024)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session took a close look at a self-portrait painting by Filippo Balbi, posted below.

Our prompt was: “In my head...”

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

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Self-portrait painting by Filippo Balbi

Credit: Filippo Balbi

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the music video “The Great Escape” by Patrick Watson, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about an escape.”

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

“The Great Escape” by Patrick Watson

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Who Says the Eye Loves Symmetry” by Patrick Rosal, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about the beauty within asymmetry.”

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 May 20th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"Who Says the Eye Loves Symmetry" by Patrick Rosal

Doesn’t the eye love the ragged
tear of sky the treetop-shred
horizon The eye— after all—
loves the dizzy
dip of a road: its precarious
tilt towards a ravine
only wrist-deep water
and giant smooth rocks to break
the sky’s fall The eye
loves the bit peach window agape
buildings caught mid-swagger across a skyline
The eye loves unpainted pickets
cracked planks the harlequin the prow
poked out of water
like a chin loves
the evergreen arched over a flood
like an old man looking into the street
for a hand loves a sawed link chewed
rope a birch’s slants But
the eye can’t
love what it can’t
see: the woman
striding tired and brave amid the lobby’s bustle
and under her shirt
a single breast
For Maureen Clyne

Patrick Rosal
Who Says the Eye Loves Symmetry is reprinted from Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive (Persea Books, 2003) and originally appeared in Uncommon Denominators (Palanquin Press, 2000).
Poem, copyright © 2000 by Patrick Rosal
Appearing on From the Fishouse with permission
Audio file, copyright © 2005, From the Fishouse

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read an excerpt from the novel “The Ceremony p. 91-92 ” by Leslie Marmon Silko, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about being seen from the outside.”

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 17th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

The Ceremony p. 91-92 by Leslie Marmon Silko

She sat with the sheets pulled around her and watched him get dressed. “I have been 
watching you for a long time,” she said. “I saw the color of your eyes.”

   Tayo did not look at her.

  “Mexican eyes,” he said, “the other kids used to tease me.”

   The rain was only a faint sound on the roof, and the sound of the thunder was distant, and 
moving east. Tayo unbolted the door and opened it; he watched the rainwater pour out of the 
rain gutter over the side of the long porch. “I always wished I had dark eyes like other 
people. When they look at me they remember things that happened. My Mother. His throat
felt tight. He had not talked about this before with anyone.

   She shook her head slowly. “They are afraid, Tayo. They feel something happening, they 
can see something happening around them, and it scares them. Indians or Mexicans or 
whites – most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same 
color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing.” She laughed slowly. “They 
are fools. They blame us, the one who look different. That way they don’t have to think 
about what has happened inside themselves.”

Credit: Leslie Marmon Silko