We read, write, share and discuss our poetry. Meets every week on Wednesday. We are a dedicated, supportive and non-critical family of ladies and gents who deeply care about the role of poetry in our world and tend to be romantics at heart. If you see poetry in your day as you walk down the street, that restless productivity sometimes leaves you feeling a pain of emptiness in your heart then come join us at our weekly salons.
Send contributions to blank.pegasus@gmail.com
8:50- 9:00: Reading and discussion of ‘Your Feet,’ and ‘Your Hands,’ - Pablo Neruda
Two Minute Meditation
9:00- 9:20 : Freewrite on theme.
Prompts:
1. If you are someone that believes in the ‘soul,’ do you think there is a separation between it and the body? Where or how do you experience that separation?
2. Is there a particular area or part of the body (besides the obvious sexy parts, though this is fine to write about too,) that especially attracts you or you are drawn too?
3.How has your own body changed with time or carried you through the world?
9:20-9:30 : Sharing of freewrites
BREAK (15 MINUTES)
9:45-10:00 : Reading and discussion of, ‘I sing the body electric,’- Walt Whitman
10:00- 10:30 : Writing exercise on theme with group contributed questions.
10:30-11:00 : A variety of other shenanigans and writing games/ recorded group poem.
If you could fit both of your hands into my chest
and wrap your tight possessive fingers around my heart
and squeeze every drop of blood out of it
with your eyes closed
I believe you would
And, if you could take the blood and drink it with your claws
and place large grey rocks in the vacant cavity where
there once was a beating force of life
I believe you would
If when you were finished you could slyly
hide in a silver cape and iridescent knee socks and like
a rocket, jet yourself into the cloudy sky, and enter
the heavens through a crack of light between
two heavy rain clouds,
I believe you would,with a belly full of my blood, and pieces of my
flesh stuck underneath your nails.
Mike Zhai just submitted a poignant work for feedback; here's a full transcription:
Jacaleena
I'm used to the smell of your enchanted perfume, That famous perfume I first saw on a midnight Infomercial, on a night as predictable as its soundtrack Sung by a singer who couldn't speak the language, Bringing tears to a million eyes, and proving You and I are not so different after all.
We're only different symptoms of the same world; In a year you spent jogging on the treadmill, Eating raw vegan Chinese and watching the tide roll in, In a year somewhat before this world ended— I've been a minor glitch in the weather, another frightnik Round the corner, an uninvited guest.
I'm used to your curls hanging down like vines Blackened by the heat of a shadeless summer Your arm with the barbed-wire rose tattoo, Your eyes as blue as the deepest lakes— As if bathing in them might have saved me Like baptism might have saved the Jews,
I chased these sounds that enticed and ravished Even as they cried out in utter strangeness— The music of people long ago extinct, Or of those dedicated to my extinction: As if they held the key to the secret code of life, They prod me to dance at my execution.
You who were born on this remorseless earth, Mother's milk gone sour in cactus breasts; This coldness is older than we can imagine, Like the screams we don’t hear through the scream of the metro In the desolate rites the earth at evening Burying the mobs of unhappy people...
"It's the kind of love you only read about, The only yogurt you'll want to have day after day!" So slowly we'll get used to knowing each other A little less each time we happen to meet Till finally we turn to strangers, waiting To meet for the first time over again
From this city you are leaving; in another You arrive, a new face bringing new hope, New heartbreak, already long in the making. We'll meet again as a thousand other people Reacquainted with the wind that's always speaking Neither of expectation, nor of loss...
The story of Gatsby and Daisy keeps repeating itself over and over; will we ever stop disappointing each other? I couldn't help but think of Jack White's cover of Love is Blindness while reading this...
Okay, okay, on second thought, it might not be as topical as I first thought; Mike's poem has an altogether different tone; more accepting and contemplative. You folks are welcome to suggest something, in person or in the comments section—you do know that this blog has a comment section, yes? It's at the bottom of every post.
Now, I'll take this opportunity to introduce my favourite tool for collaborative work of any sort: Google Docs. This Youtube tutorial explores what we can do with a google file in great and excellent detail (and covers other tools such as Google Presentations and Google Sheets), but this level of mastery is not necessary for what I would like to do here. Nevertheless, here it is;
Now, here's a link to a Google Docs version of Mike's poem. Here's the first thing we're gonna do with those; highlight a piece of text with your mouse, and summon the menu (right click, cmnd key, whatever works on your platform).
Among the many options, you'll have the option to "comment", which has a little speech bubble in front of it. Clicking on it will allow you to add your own little comment, things like "I loved this verse! Such wording, much metric, wow!" or "I notice that I am confused" or "This reminded me of...".
This is especially useful when the work being submitted is a work in progress, looking for feedback and corrections and improvements. And the best part is that you can answer each other's comments, thus allowing for multiple commenters and editors to work with the author interactively and in real time in improving the concerned piece. Or, you know, just gush to each other on how wonderful a particular piece is.
Next time, we'll expand on this, and tackle something more advanced; actual collaborative writing. There is an epic to be wrought!
9:00-9:20 : FREEWRITE ON THEME. PROMPTS: If this person is not longer in your life, do you wish they were? And if they were what would life look like with them? OR How does or did this person influence who you are? OR If you had a chance to tell this person something you haven’t told them what would it be? OR Describe what the perfect day with this person is.
9:20-9:30 : SHARING OF FREEWRITES
BREAK ( 15 MINUTES )
9:45- 10:30 : READING AND DISCUSSION OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S ‘LUCY POEMS’
Strange Fits of Passion Have I known
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
Three Years she Grew in Sun and Shower
I travelled Among Unknown Men
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
10:30- 10:45 : SHORT WRITING GROUP EXERCISE: CONTRIBUTED QUESTIONS.
Hello, everyone. This is your favourite web-jockey Ahmed releasing the first post of the website for our poetry group, which has yet to be named besides "BARCELONA ENGLISH SPEAKING POETRY GROUP", which, while descriptive, lacks a certain je-ne-sais-quoi (that's Fancee for "wossname") that one would expect of this kind of crew. So we called it Barcelona Poetry Workshop, because we're subversively simple like that.
Now, I'll quote the general description we have of our group on the Meetup site; seeing as it's excellent and representative and otherwise awesome, I think any alternate description would be a paraphrase. So here we go:
Every week we follow an agenda on a theme of some sort. Examples in the past: 'City life,' ' Passion,' ' Animals,' 'Sex and Lust,' 'Food tasting and writing,' 'Childhood.' etc... We also have themes based around periods/movements in poetry. In general we open with introductions, go into sharing of poems ( whoever has one to share,) , short meditation, 15 minute free-write to selected music, and then delve into group or individual writing projects based on our theme. Prompts are given out though obviously you are encouraged to write about anything your are feeling or want to explore. Lots of writing games, laughing, out-loud recorded group poems. I usually try and introduce 2-3 new poets to the group a week. We drink a lot of red wine and eat food too! Wednesday poetry nights are generally based around the concept of total escapism.....if you combine wine and food with something as impractical as poetry what do you expect?! We are a dedicated, supportive and non-critical family of ladies and gents who deeply care about the role of poetry in our world and tend to be romantics at heart. If you see poetry in your day as you walk down the street, if you feel like the quickly developing world of technology sometimes leaves you feeling a pain of emptiness in your heart then come join us at our weekly salons. We always take a break half way through to visit and consume edible and drinkable things like the heathens we are. Bring a pen, paper, a personality, some vulnerability, a bottle of wine, a tender heart, a hardened heart that needs tenderizing, a sense of humor...dark or as light as a springtime butterfly, and most important your belief in a life filled with poetry!
I personally testify that all of this is factual description and excellent advice. No hyperbole, no euphemisms, no doublespeak. We're a straight crew, we keep it real. This is in no small part thanks to our esteemed leader, Kate Hawk, who's great at catalysing up that wonderful welcoming mood, and that sense of fun and authenticity that makes the charm of the group.
With this, I hereby declare our website inaugurated. The next post will be very practical about how to share media and give each other feedback online. Till then!
