Try writing a poem if you’ve never written one. It can be daunting to try to write a poem if it’s something you’ve never tried.
The following lines are from the poem “Poetry”, by Pablo Neruda (included in the book “Saved By A Poem”, by Kim Rosen).
…and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing, ….
Someone in the group suggested, “You start by starting.”
Just put something on paper and see if a poem can grow from it.
The prompt for this week’s meeting comes from a passage in the book “Saved By A Poem”, by Kim Rosen.
She describes talks she had with her 98-year-old grandmother, who was dying:
Sometimes we’d sing together:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.
Until I sang this song with my 98-year-old grandmother, her body pumping as if paddling toward the veil between the worlds, I’d never heard its wisdom. “It’s true, isn’t it, Nana?” I would ask her. “Life is the dream. Where you’re going , maybe that’s the reality.” She didn’t answer, but I felt her press her cheek into my hand as we began the song again.
Write from any inspiration you take from the passage above.
We are experimenting with giving a prompt for the week so members can have more time to work on it and then bring their writing to the group meeting the following Monday.
The prompt for this week is a poem by Mary Oliver from her book of poems titled, A Thousand Mornings.
Three Things To Remember
As long as you’re dancing,
you can break the rules.
Some times breaking the rules is just
extending the rules.
Sometimes there are no rules.
by Mary Oliver
Take any inspiration you find in the poem and write in whatever direction you wish to take it.
The prompt for the group meeting is:
An Instrument and an Odor.
We are experimenting with giving a prompt for the week so members can have more time to work on it and then bring their writing to the group meeting the following Monday.
The prompt for this week is a poem by Mary Oliver from her book of poems titled, A Thousand Mornings.
On Traveling To Beautiful Places
Every day I’m still looking for God
and I’m still finding him everywhere,
in the dust, in the flowerbeds.
Certainly in the oceans,
in the islands that lay in the distance
continents of ice, countries of sand
each with its own set of creatures
and God, by whatever name.
How perfect to be aboard a ship with
maybe a hundred years still in my pocket.
But it’s late, for all of us,
and in truth the only ship there is
is the ship we are all on
burning the world as we go.
by Mary Oliver
Take any inspiration you find in the poem and write in whatever direction you wish to take it.
The prompt for the group meeting was the following line:
My wife tells me I’m really unfair to one of our children, but she’ll never tell me whether it’s Roger, Claire, or the lazy stupid one.
We are experimenting with giving a prompt for the week so members can have more time to work on it and then bring their writing to the group meeting the following Monday.
The prompt for this week is:
The student led March For Our Lives rally just occurred this past weekend (3/24/18) in Washington D.C. and in sibling rallies in more than 800 cities around the U.S. and the world .
What would you say if one of the students asked you to join in the demonstration? Or, if you did, write your thoughts about it.
The prompt for the group meeting was about Music.
Music: What does it do?
One of our group’s members, who taught special ed for two decades, brought in a poem by anonymous about being who you are and proud of it, though it started each element with the negative.
The first few lines were:
If you can’t be a tree on the top of the hill
Be a shrub in the valley, but be
The best little shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
Write about how you go about being yourself and what attitude or perspective is required to accomplish this .
We are experimenting with giving a prompt for the week so members can have more time to write on it and then bring their writing to the meeting the following Monday.
The prompt for this week is:
Watching is a preoccupation of humankind, but the inability to adequately react to all they perceive eventually blinds them.
Writers in the Grove 