Last weekend I did one of my favorite things in this world: I conducted the Wellness Community writing workshop in Redondo Beach. I don’t actually do a whole lot – I just bring in some poems and prose by wonderful writers to inspire everybody, give five minute writing exercises, and then everyone reads aloud what they’ve written. Sometimes we pass the Kleenex box but more often instead of tears there’s raucous laughter. Since most everybody in the workshop has cancer or has recovered from it, or is a caregiver to someone with cancer, there’s no superficial writing, no time to waste on anything but getting stories and emotions down on the page. I’ve been doing this for ten years now (recently with help from Laura Beasley and Karin Ireland when I can’t make it) – and the workshop never gets boring, or old, or too sad. In spite of illness and fear and sometimes profound loss, there’s also this incredible connection when everybody reads their work out loud. The room just fills up with joy and hope and I feel blessed to be part of it.

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Some exercises we’ve done in the past few months that you might try:

1. Write about scars that show and scars that don’t show.

2. Start with the words This is what you should know about me…..and go for five minutes (or longer if you get on a roll.)   

3. Write the details of an ordinary day.  And then pay attention to the ordinary details of tomorrow.

4. Do you need to be part of a community/group of people who are going through what you’re going through? Or do you need solitude and privacy? Write about what you need/want.

5. What gift do you bring to this world?

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Speaking of gifts – here’s an idea for volunteering: Why not find a place you could volunteer to conduct a writing workshop or mentor a teenager?  I used to do a workshop at my mother’s retirement hotel with a group of very polite, sweet older ladies who thought I was crazy, but we had a lot of fun. (My mother would attend and not write one word.)

I’m also involved with an organization in L.A I’ve written a lot about on this blog called WriteGirl –  women authors mentor teenage girls (Check out their website: www.WriteGirl.org )

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It’s National Poetry Month and if you want to receive a poem a day in your email, please send an email to: http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/poetry/poemaday/

And  also  to: poetnews@poets.org   

Two poems a day! How cool is that?

And if you liked the quote from W.S. Merwin’s poem in the last post, you can find the whole poem at:

www.tmcamp.com/2004/09/poetic-divination-berryman-by-w.php