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 6/6/2024 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 below

  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

The Chicago Institue of Art currently has an installation of paintings by Georgia O’Keefe, which inspired me to look up some of her quotes. I was surprised and delighted by this “quote” about hummingbirds, which she wrote in a letter to Edna St. Vincent Millay. The phrasing and line breaks seem more akin to a poem than a quote. I found the quote touching for two reasons: 1. it beautifully expresses the surprising impact a brief interaction with someone can have on our lives—that something so small can be so intense and alive for us; and 2. it captures the special bond between friends that ”know the best part of one another without spending much time together.” O’Keefe then divests herself of future expectations about where the friendship might go with a peculiar line: “I am at this moment willing to let you be what you are to me,” which is like a hummingbird: beautiful, pure, and intensely alive!

Hummingbird

a hummingbird flew in--

It fluttered against the window til I got it down where I could reach it with an open umbrella--

--When I had it in my hand it was so small I couldn't believe I had it--but I could feel the intense life--so intense and so tiny--

...You were like the humming bird to me...

And I am rather inclined to feel that you and I know the best part of one another without spending much time together--

--It is not that I fear the knowing--

It is that I am at this moment willing to let you be what you are to me--it is beautiful and pure and very intensely alive.

—Georgia O’Keefe
https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/about-georgia-okeeffe/

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem about hummingbirds.

  2. Journal or write a poem about holding a small bird (or some other small animal) in your hands. Or free write from the prompt: The most precious thing I ever held in my hands was…

  3. Journal or write a poem about a friendship in which you know the best part of one another, even without spending much time together.

  4. Consider a person in your life and determine what animal or plant that person might be like. Then write a prose piece or a poem describing how the person is like the selected animal

  5. Journal or write a poem about fears you might or might not have regarding a particualr person in your life.

  6. What would it take to let others be what they are to you without putting them on a pedesatal or denigrating them though negative judgement? Pick someone in your life and use the prompt: When I let you be what you are to me, I…

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