Hunger
- At July 20, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
6
A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. —Brene Brown
These are challenging times. We are being asked to shoulder all the sorrows, surprising sweetnesses and unsettling machinations that cycle through what we now call the “new normal.” For me, dealing with what seems like insurmountable problems, the pandemic and effects of systemic racism, creates an emptiness in my stomach as if little food has passed my lips.
Poetry for These Times
- At June 15, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 4
A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.—Salman Rushdie
The last two weeks have been ones of strong emotion and calls for change, the brutal death of George Floyd making it impossible to go on as before, to maintain what seems to have become the status quo in this country: systemic racism, social injustice, and police brutality. While we as a country may denounce such racism and the awful fruits of it, we haven’t done enough to make it stop.
Read More»JoySpace
- At May 04, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 6
Your art is a place you always return to. — Pat Benincasa
The pandemic has caused a shift in our daily lives and we are forced to think and behave in new ways. What can we as writers hold on to during these challenging weeks? How can we spark joy? Be open to exploring? Find JoySpace in what we know best and return to the love of line, words and stories. Yes, it’s possible to be “graced” even now by our love of creating. Creativity grabs our attention in a blessed way—it feeds us, nourishes our soul, and brings us joy. But we must be willing to depart from routine, explore a little and stretch ourselves. I was reminded of this lesson when my two youngest granddaughters Zoomed with me this week.
Read More»Kindness in the Time of Quarantine
- At April 20, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 2
Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change.—Bob Kerrey
Lately, I have been thinking about “Kindness,” the moving poem written by Naomi Shihab Nye and published in 1995. “Before you know kindness,” she wrote, “you must lose things…” For this is a time when we as a world and we as individual people are going through loss. For some, it is deep heart-wrenching loss when a loved one passes away. For most of us, it is loss experienced in other ways–loss of financial security and loss of freedom of movement, loss of the loving contact of friends and family, the solace that comes from talking things over.
Read More»Writing from the Heart
- At March 02, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 4
Words are events, they do things. –Ursula K. Le Guin
We carry stories around in our heads all our lives, often forgetting about them until we see an image in a photo, experience a dream or hear a word dropped from a conversation or song. For me, the word speck triggered a memory, and suddenly a story written in fourth grade came into clear view. Mrs. Matthews, my teacher, assigned an essay on the topic of “Favorite Animals” and we were supposed to write with strong emotion. Oh, I thought that would be easy. Being with Speck, my brindle-colored rat terrier, was like being with a best friend. He was a cuddly bundle of fifteen pounds who accompanied me on solitary walks all over the farm. I did talk to him, only occasionally I told my friends; but when I told him something of great importance, Speck would cock his head as if he understood. Through rain or snow, he waited for me after school and when the bus pulled up, he yipped and barked, saying hello in dog language.
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