Begin Here: Poetry, Prompts & Practices
These 3 Ps are the anchors to my peace
Hello, dear reader. Welcome. Here’s a wee little tour of what you can expect to find in my newsletters and posts. I am writing all the time - in my head, on paper, in song, in my ongoing 1,002,732 page Google doc and in stacks of Moleskin notebooks. It feels good to be putting some words here, as well as letting you know when I will be offering writing, meditation, breathwork and other wellness/human/healing focused workshops. Thank you for being here.
Shall I begin with Poetry?
I will be putting my own poems here, as well as pieces from my favorite poets. I have a tiny notebook of poems I wrote when I was in second grade, which reminds me that I’ve been a poet for a long time. Highlights from that book include “The Spooks Are Out” and “Grandparents are Great.” These poems are full of end rhyme and clichés.
My poetry now is mostly free verse. Some poems are dark. Some are about soup (I’ve had a long run in food writing). Some are rants and ache with with woes and wear that comes with motherhood. Some are funny. And a bunch of my poems have turned into songs (yes, I’ve got some original tunes I might share here too). Writing poems helps me sort through and be with the stuff of life. Poems help me to crystallize moments, to be open to beauty and to stay curious.
I’ve collaborated in poetry projects where I’ve listened to other people’s experiences and lives and made poems of what they’ve shared with me. I begin many of my poems in workshops with other poets and writers and then tinker with them for days and weeks after. I write in this way at least once a week - which is also connected to practice.
A workshop series I took with the poet Jon Sands during the pandemic called Emotional Historians has most recently pushed me as a poet. In this workshop Sands told us that the question to ask is not “is this poem good?” Rather, he challenged us to ask “is this poem true of this moment.”
I dug up a poem I wrote during early COVID as part of the Front Lines Project that paired poets with doctors on the front lines of the epidemic. This poem is a persona poem, speaking in the voice of Dr. Laura Melville after we spent time in Zoom and in phone calls. I believe it is the truest thing I could write from this moment in time. And the process of writing it was healing for me and for Laura.
The First to Go for Laura Melville, MD [ July 2020 ] My grandmother’s diamond flung from my ear to the floor, caught in the strap of my N95 in my haste to yank free a shout after too many muffled words had landed unheard. To be safe I take out the rest of the studs, the line of five along my left ear, that I touch when I talk, when I think, when I need to remind myself of myself. So now I tug my naked lobes, touching nothing as I flip charts, find the names, count the days. The oxygen worked. It didn’t work. They are getting better. They are getting worse. These days I get it wrong more than I get it right. In a sea of plastic walls and plastic windows of the ER I make a point to peer inside so I can see my patients’ faces. I don’t know how to answer their questions. The place above my heart, beneath my throat, naked now, remembers the sapphire: my stone of steady and light. When I see a terror in a face that is too much, my fingers find this place and pull some peace from a deep, blue well, there and not there. The answers I am used to having have slipped with the purple from my hair, tired and over washed. My head a nest of straw tucked beneath a disposable cap. I know new things now. Like how the scent of the statement: “We need to put your mother on a vent” is the stink of my own unwashed teeth stale and hot inside my mask. At home I fasten my familiar blue stone, a gift from my love, around my neck. I’ve added an older braided chain of gold. I am not sure why – it feels right. I pedal and pedal my pandemic Peloton. I sing to my love-sick bird and still I can’t escape the wait, the not knowing when I will do this all again.
Practice, Practice, Practice.
Writing is a practice. Taking my dog for a walk every morning is a practice. Making soup is a practice (can you tell I have a thing for soup?). Drinking peppermint tea nightly is a practice. Mindfulness is a practice.
Not drinking alcohol is a practice. It’s been about 1.5 years alcohol free for me and I have a lot to say about what has shifted for me, why I made the decision to retire from my drinking career and how it feels like a rebellious choice in this society obsessed with drinking alcohol. What I want to tell you about the most is the deep peace I’ve found since leaving alcohol behind.
What is it you do regularly, with intention, that helps you feel good? (This could be a prompt… See how these all work together?) We all have different practices - and our own ways of practicing. I do my practices because they make me feel good and they help me keep my peace. They have become essential to my well-being. I love peeking into other people’s practices and trying new things. A cold plunge practice? A hip-hop practice? A transpersonal hypnosis practice? All practices I have just dipped my toes in and hope to do more.
I will write here about the practices I know well, like my teaching practices. I teach mindfulness, meditation and breathwork. I also teach teachers - or to be more specific, I teach future middle school and high school English teachers who are in their senior year at Penn State University. My students are always teaching me. I will write about that here as well.
This will be place to stay in the loop for breathwork meditation offerings. I offer a monthly class in zoom each month. You can learn more and reserve your space here.
In non-academic teaching spaces, I teach about how to use writing as a way to heal. I am a teaching artist with Ridgeline Language Arts whose mission is to uplift under-heard voices in the ridges and valleys of Central Pennsylvania. I teach mindfulness writing to support groups at Centre Safe serving survivors of domestic violence, survivors of sexual assault and the Centre Safe staff.
Prompts
My senior superlative in our Notre Dame Academy class of 1997 yearbook was “most likely to have deep thoughts”. I love digging into a big, juicy, question. I’ve got some good ones to ask you. I’ll invite you to sit with the questions - no pressure to have an answer. There is no “right” answer. The point of the prompt is to get into the feeling of it. To play. To be in the journey. To watch and listen to yourself, to bear witness to what might spill out of your pen or into your Google doc as you write.
The point is to let yourself be free in your writing. To tell the truth. To look at your truth and see who you are becoming.
I host writing groups of all kinds in many different shapes in forms, in person and online. I’ll keep you in the loop and invite you in when you subscribe here.
Carolyne - what a deeply moving, beautiful poem. And necessary. Thanks.
Mary
Welcome to Substack! Loved the poem and looking forward to your future posts. Also, I am here for the soup.