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 10/10/24 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 body’s ability to heal is miraculous. We have all endured countless physical injuries and illnesses in life, from minor to severe, and most have turned out fine or at least manageable. If the injury is acute, we often forget about it once the pain is gone. The body takes care of itself. With hurts of the heart, however, the mind runs amok with the insult of it. We often carry the heartache for years. And deeper still is the suffering of the soul when we sin against ourselves as we so often do when we forget who we are. I don't know if that is the wound to the soul that DH Lawrence refers to in his poem, Healing, But I have made that mistake and I suspect I can only be forgiven when I free myself from the endless repetition of it.

Healing

I am not a mechanism, an assembly a various sections.
And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly,
that I am ill.
I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional
self
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time
can help
and patience, and a certain difficult repentance,
long, difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the
freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.

D.H. Lawrence
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/d-h-lawrence

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem about a physical injury you suffered that healed,

  2. Lawrence begins his poem with a negation about himself: I am not a mechanism. Use that idea as your prompt and journal or write a poem about what you are not. Use the prompt; I am not…

  3. Journal or write a poem listing wounds of the soul. Or pick a particular wound of the soul and write about it..

  4. D. H. Lawrence equates the soul with the deep emotional self. Journal or write a poem about what the soul is to you.

  5. Journal or write a poem about repentance, whatever it may mean to you and however you may relate to it; need it or not, want it, avoid it, etc…

  6. Journal or write up poem about life's mistake, whatever you might imagine that to be. Or you can just use the prompt:, The mistake in life is… Or My mistake in life is…

  7. Journal or write about about freeing yourself from mistakes and misgivings. How do you keep true to yourself? How do you keep from losing yourself?

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