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. Register Here:

Next Read-Around is 8/10/23 at 5:00 PM PST

How It Works:

  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

My Thoughts

Whenever we go “shopping,” whether we have a target in mind or just browsing windows, we are looking for something. It is how we in the west, and particularly in the USA, have been trained. I’ve even seen kids pushing pint-sized “shopper-in-training “ grocery carts alongside their adults. The looking for something premise is often highlighted at the register when asked, find everything you’re looking for? Or that helpful query, can I get you anything else? Of course, our answer should be contextualized. But, if taken in, those add-on sale questions can go much deeper. Laura Grace Weldon deafly weaves these shopping queries into wondering what we might be looking for in the world. Of course, we can answer world peace sardonically. But what happens when we take it to heart. What comes to your mind when you take in that deep breath of imagining our planet’s highest possibilities?

Anything, Everything

“Find everything you’re looking for?” a clerk asks
and I say, “I’m still looking for world peace.”
“Can I get you anything else?” A nurse asks
and I say, “Yes, I save haven for refugees.”
For a millisecond, their faces soften
as they take a deep breath of imagining
then laugh or shake their heads
or commiserate. For a few minutes
we might even discuss
our planets highest possibilities.
Maybe that deep breath,
that imagining,
is a starting place.

Laura Grace Weldon
https://lauragraceweldon.com/about/

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem about some thing you are still looking for. You can use the prompt, After all these years, I am still looking for…

  2. Journal or write apoem about what you want from a store clerk when shopping live?

  3. Journal or write apoem about what you want from a health care provider?

  4. A “double take” is delayed reaction to some unusual remark, situation. Journal or write apoemabout a timewhen you aor someone else experienced a double take.

  5. Journal or write a poem about what might com or where you might go when you “take a deep breath of imagining.”when I take a deep breath of imagining…

  6. What do you think are the planet’s highest possibilities.

  7. Make a list of starting places for making a difference in the world or with the planet.

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