Sabbath #65

Yesterday a storm passed through the Green Mountains of Vermont and the temperature cooled to a comfortable place where sleep and dream were enhanced. I woke late. And walked trance like to Commons on the campus of Bennington College, helped my plate to fresh mellon and scrambled vegetables and eggs. I sat at the empty round table and watched it build as people, dear friends, breakfast in hand, joined me. And the conversation as usual, rich with remembrances, literary references, and affectionate partings. The residency is over. We are exhausted from the efforts of attending and attending. But we are also full from the richness of scholarship, friendship and dancing like fools into the night, several nights in a row. My suitcases, packed. Clothes for tomorrow’s travel picked out, dinner plans made for tonight, a last supper of sort before leaving this beloved place, our home away from home, January and June.

The Writer's Studio

The Writer’s Studio Summer Workshop

 

To convey the sound of the soul.

-Marguerite  Duras

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry and Prose

 

This summer create and revise new work influenced by your cannon.  Our reading obsession will involve a delightful preoccupation with creating a personal anthology of writings, a collection of your Masters.

The takeaway from this session will be new work and shared anthologies.

 

 

Date: Beginning  Tuesday, July 17 (4 meetings)

Other dates set at first meeting

Time:  6:30 PM

Fee: $150

Place: 2940 N. Lynnhaven RD, Virginia Beach, VA

Teacher: Elaine Fletcher Chapman, MFA

thewritersstudio.elaine@gmail.com

757-650-8735

View original post

Sabbath #62

I’m alone in my house. It’s Sunday morning. I’ve walked, bought the NYTimes, eaten my breakfast of oatmeal and berries, chatted with a neighbor. My husband is at work, delivering a sermon right now. It begins with something about the full moon tonight. I’ve needed to be at my desk for a week or so but events take hold and alas, I’m a stranger. When I am not writing, I am a stranger to myself and out of sorts with everyone else. I’m in need of words, mine and others. I’m in need of poems, mine and others. And today this is the one that comes: Fishing in the Keep Of Silence by Linda Gregg

There is a hush now while the hills rise up/and God is going to sleep. He trusts the ship/of Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully/as he lies dreaming in the lap of the world./He knows the owls will guard the sweetness/ of the soul in their massive keep of silence,/looking out with eyes open or closed over/the length of Tomales Bay that the herons/conform to,whitely broad in flight,white/and slim standing. God, who thinks about/poetry all the time, breathes happily as He repeats Himself:There are fish in the net,/lots of fish this time in the net of the heart.

And my heart is full as I begin another day in this lovely town on the Eastern Shore, I now call home.