Tag: workshop

Free World

~ sojourningsmith ~ Leave a comment

The Poetry Daily is going to go on the road again this weekend. At some point I will post the daily poem over the weekend, but it will be between workshops when I can hop onto Wes’ and Tuesday’s wifi in their kitchen. My husband, Tony Cuckson, and I are doing a two-hander creative writing workshop over the weekend. It’s part of a weekend of creative writing workshops at a Willowbrook Glamping site in Roscommon. So, close to the earth, as well as writing. The sun is blistering bright this morning. Temperatures are going over 25C. Which may not sound hot. But it is for Ireland! Which will probably mean we will be writing outdoors. I shall be the one swathed in shawls, floppy brimmed hat worthy of Scarlet O’Hara, the one who has sun screen and insect repellent in her workshop bag (along with the talking stick, pens, notebooks, etc.) Being a congenitally pale person I prefer shade and cooler temperatures. Living in Ireland, where I can go whole years without fishing out my sunglasses, I generally am only uncomfortable for a week or so, rather than months on end.

Poetry practice comes before packing up the car. 

Free World

Wouldn't that be a free world?
If we did not get whiplashed
by others' assumptions
about who you are and
what you are?
That you wouldn't get defined by
the kinds of things you eat
for breakfast, for instance,
or the flat pack that lies
ready to assemble 
beside your kitchen table,
what it says about you
(your budget, skill level, taste, or lack thereof )
the narrowness of your choices.
But if others' assumptions
could be the devils freefalling
off your back
that would, indeed, become one
way of being free.

 
 Copyright © 2019 Bee Smith. All rights reserved. 

Featured image   Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash
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Poetry as Sacrament

~ sojourningsmith ~ Leave a comment

There is a point to having one day being the Sabbath, a day of rest and contemplation. There is a point to taking a tip from Orthodox Jewish women who cook in advance and leave the dishes and clearing up for twenty-four hours once a week. Leave the quotidian grind behind and contemplate the larger reality in a pause. For some, worship fulfills that pause, but organised religion and ritual left me cold years ago. Secular concerns rarely nourish the soul; at least, that is my experience, but I was brought up in a religiously observant environment. I am not alone in having a hunger for the numimous. In the absence of collective ritual, poetry offers itself as a sacrament. Even the ritual “Take this and eat in memory of me” resonates not only the nourishment offered in the sacrament of Communion, but the mentioning of memory.  In the genealogy of St. Brigid, memory is the ultimate source of poetry.

This Sunday snow falls in a desultory dance  outside my window. I went to the poetry bookcase and pulled out an anthology at random. What does Spirit want to speak to me today?  Even though I have left the spiritual traditions of the Peoples of the Book, the Judeo-Christian attachment to books remains. I pulled Risking Everything: 110 Poems love and Revelation from the shelf. Then I opened it and what a pleasure to have a David Whyte poem before me.  

Moses appears on the first line of “Fire in the Earth.” I had to smile. So appropriate for a Sunday morning reading. Secondly, the title synchronously echoes some exercises in writing spiritual autobiography I have undertaken.

Like many writers, most of my income is earned from teaching. This is no hardship and I discovered that I had a vocation for encouraging people to use words to express themselves and find greater confidence in their inherant worth. It has been my privilege to work in prison and share in profound moments of communion and revelation .  I have witnessed  the exhileration  of  those with literacy challenges seeing the words from their lips crafted into a poem. Currently, I am a co-pilot on a Cavan Youth Arts Lab project with a dozen 12-14 year old girls; already I can sense we are moving into that communion space of affirmation.

On the last Saturday of this month 24th February, I will lead a half-day workshop Soul Journeys: Writing You Spiritual Autobiography. The workshop will take place in a appropriately liminal space. The Markethouse in Blacklion lies metres from the border with Northern Ireland where Cavan meets Fermanagh.  The workshop will run from 11am-3pm. Bring a notebook and a comfortable pen with a good ink flow. Bring some food tomshare at lunchtime.  Also, prepare to enter into the sacrament that is your own life.

To book a place or get more information leave a comment. There is a Facebook event page with full details Word Alchemy Event Writing Your Spiritual autobiography

I highly recmmend a listen to this podcast of David Whyte. He has some powerful words to say about the nature of poetry, the poet’s purpose, and how e can re-frame our life story and make meaning from our lif’s experience and soul’s destiny. David Whyte RTE 1 Podcast

As you journey through next week bear in mind my friend Pen’s words to me this past week 

In theory,  every encounter – even with the postman – is sacramental.