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 10/17/24 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

In his commencement speech to Stanford University students in 2005, Steve Jobs said, Don’t let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own voice.  This is an especially difficult task when we have interjected those opinions and let them speak within us, sometimes even in our own voice. The deeper question is, how do we sift through the chatter to hear the voice of truth within us. Michael Blumenthal’s A Man Lost By A River suggests that voice is inside the body and speaks through the throbbing, four chambered pear we call the heart. It is a voice no one really wants to hear in their everyday world because it is life-changing. It is a voice we only hear when we stray from the path of our routines and wander close enough to the river of life for which the heart sings. In that moment, we are strangely, beautifully both lost and found in the world. We restore ourselves as a presence in the moment engaged with the world directly through our senses, ideally surrounded by the natural world where all things excel at being themselves. That’s when we hear the haunting allure of our deep self singing with all its longing and mourning and joyful celebration. That’s when we put our finger on the pulse of our life and know we will never be the same.

A Man Lost By A River

There is a voice inside the body.

There is a voice and a music,
a throbbing, four-chambered pear
that wants to be heard, that sits
alone by the river with its mandolin
and its torn coat, and sings
for whomever will listen
a song that no one wants to hear.

But sometimes, lost,
on his way to somewhere significant,
a man in a long coat, carrying
a briefcase, wanders into the forest.

He hears the voice and the mandolin,
he sees the thrush and the dandelion,
and he feels the mist rise over the river.

And his life’s never the same,
for this haven been lost —
for having strayed from the path of his routine,
for no good reason.

—Michale Blumenthal
https://www.tennesonwoolf.com/a-man-lost-by-a-river-michael-blumenthal/

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem about a voice of truth inside you that you do not want to hear.

  2. Blumenthal characterizes the heart, or perhaps the deep self, as a person by a river with a mandolin and a torn coat singing for whomever will listen a song no one wants to hear. Journal or write a poem describing how would you characterize the heart or deep self.

  3. What song does your heart, or deep self (the one that sits at the river of life), sing? What instrument does it use?

  4. Blumenthal characterizes the everyday self as a person in a long coat with a briefcase going to someplace significant. Journal or write a poem describing how would you characterize the everyday self. You can contrast this with the prior prompt as Blumenthal does.

  5. Journal or write a poem describing the “forest” you wander into when you get lost in your everyday life. Or describe a time when you actually got lost in a forest (or someplace)

  6. What unheard voice inside do you hear when you slow down or separate enough from your everyday life to tune in to yourself? Journal or write a poem about what that voice says. You can write it as a dialogue. Or you can write about how you keep the noise of other’s opinions from drowning out your own voice.

  7. What is the difference between the world you see and hear in the rush of everyday life and the world you see and hear when you slow down and engage with it? Write about that difference.

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