If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email.

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NOTE: No read-around on Thrusday, April 13. I will be at another event. The next read-around is Thursday,
April 20, 2023 at 5:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

I have been a disciple of depth, like Terry Tempest Williams, believing what mattered most was hidden under the surface. To me, truth and the secrets of the soul were like buried treasure. The hunt required chasing clues, puzzling the pieces together, and making best guesses about where to dig. Even if truth lay right under foot, I would have to travel the world searching for it in order to find it in my own back yard. I’m sure a part of this strategy comes straight out of the work ethic that says you must work hard, struggle, and suffer to earn the goods or be worthy of them when they fall in your lap.

But age and the opening of my heart has unraveled that limiting belief and dismembered the territory where X marked the spot. The world speaks for itself, nature revels in its own truth, shows itself through all we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. It is not always something we can put into words or describe in everyday language and even poetry falls short. The spell of the sunsuous imprints the world on us, speaks directly to the body, serves as a constant reminder that we are enmeshed with life, touched by wind, water, sun and the surface of all things around us.

  1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts in the column on the right

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Excerpt from Finding Beauty in a Broken World

I used to believe that truth was found only below the surface of things. Underground. I was a disciple of depth. What was hidden was what I desired.

But something changed.

It’s the dismemberment of a territory—

I am interested now in what my eyes can see, what my fingers can touch, what my hand can know by moving slowly across flesh, or fur, or feathers, or stone.

I trust what I see.

The surface of things is what we see.

I trust what I touch.

The surface of things is what we touch.

—Terry Tempest Williams
Finding Beauty In A Broken World

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem based on the prompt, Truth is found…

  2. Condsider how truth might be found in different sources: books, conversation, nature, scientce, art, etc. To what kinds of truth(s) might these different sources lead?

  3. Are you a disciple of depth? Journal or write a poem about your relationship to depth.

  4. Free write from the stem sentence, I am a disciple of…

  5. Journal or write a poem about where you found truth at different times in your life. For instance, when a child, you might have found truth in your family, then in school, in friends, in work, etc. Or perhaps you once found truth in your feelings and now you find it in your hands and a garden hose. .

  6. Journal or write poem about the truth(s) you see, hear, touch, taste, and smell in the world.

  7. Journal or write a poem about the truth(s) found in the depths versus truth(s) found on the surface?\

  8. Journal or write a poem about the dismembership of a territory. What does that mean to you? What erritory inyourlife has been dismembered?  

  9. As usual, write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.