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

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Statement of Teaching Philosophy” by Keith Leonard, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about when words fail.”

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 10th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Statement of Teaching Philosophy by Keith Leonard

My students want certainty. They want it
so badly. They respect science and have memorized
complex formulas. I don’t know
how to tell my students their parents
are still just as scared. The bullies get bigger
and vaguer and you cannot punch a cloud.
I have eulogies for all my loved ones prepared,
but cannot include this fact in my lesson plans.
The best teacher I ever had told me to meet him
at the basketball court. We played pick-up for hours.
By the end, I lay panting on the hardwood
and couldn’t so much as stand.
He told me to describe the pain in my chest.
I tried. I couldn’t find the words. Not exactly.
Listen, he said, that’s where language ends.

Credit: Keith Leonard. Waxwing literary journal

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Rita Basuray prompt response:

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the painting “SOUS LE CERVEAU” by Edward Povey, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about the then and now.”

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 3rd at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

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SOUS LE CERVEAU by Edward Povey

Credit: Edward Povey. Available from Waterhouse & Dodd Gallery, New York

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at a piece of art “Lady Exuberance” from the exhibit Ebullience by Kimathi Mafafo, posted below.

Our prompt was: “ ‘Write about being framed by nature’ OR ‘Write about where the light falls.’”

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 April 22nd at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

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Lady Exuberance, 2023 by Kimathi Mafafo

Credit: Kimathi Mafafo

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “What the Living Do” by Marie Howe, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about what the living do.”

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 April 15th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

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What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

Credit: From What the Living Do, copyright © 1998 by Marie Howe. Used by permission of W. W. Norton. All rights reserved.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H Auden , posted below.

Our prompt was: “When there is pain …”

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

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Musée des Beaux Arts by W.H Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, 
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

W. H. Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts" from Selected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson. Copyright © 1979 by W. H. Auden.  Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. (US).
Source: Selected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson (Vintage Books, 1979)