Volume XI, Issue 12
March 23, 2022
Word of the Week: flourish
“Let us gather in a flourishing way.”
~ Juan Felipe Herrera
Dear ,
I'm so excited to announce that CPCC is hosting their arts festival, Sensoria, this April, and that there are some wonderful literary events in the mix! the full Sensoria schedule here, and I'll be highlighting some very special programs below, including this week's featured writer, Juan Felipe Herrera, our U.S. Poet Laureate in 2015-2016.
But first, here's a "blast from the past" 1999 photo of me and CPCC's Literary Festival Founder, Irene Blair Honeycutt, after having just learned that Anne Lamott, whom Irene had just booked for the festival, had just made The New York Times bestseller list for her book Traveling Mercies. I was
flourishing just thinking about how wonderful it would be to hear her live. And it was!
It has been so long since I have gathered with a group of writers to celebrate and enjoy exceptional writers as they read from their works and share about
the writing of them! It would be lovely to see YOU at one of the events featured below if you can make it!
Either way, I hope that your spring is full of flourishing, no matter what kind of gathering you do!
Love and light,
Maureen
Highlights of CPCC's Literary Events at this April's Sensoria
April 11, Reception 6PM, Reading 7PM,
Tate Hall, Central Campus
Irene Blair Honeycutt Legacy Award Winners
The Bechtler Ensemble
Re-imagining Our Place on This Earth
through Poetry and Music
This iconic team has cultivated their talents and desire to cross boundaries, reaching out through poetry and music to inspire audiences in difficult times. Elevating mind, body and spirit, their spoken words and music arrangements move us deeper into gratitude, transporting listeners to another realm. What emerges is the theme of healing and hope, light in darkness. Be it Sorkin, the Beatles, Rilke or Rumi.
Be it the husband-wife team “Tanja and Bob.” Be there to hear it!
Larry Sorkin is a poet-in-residence at the Airy Knoll Arts Project. His poetry book Uncomfortable Minds was published in 2021.
Tanja Bechtler, cellist and adjunct instructor at Central Piedmont, is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Bechtler Ensemble.
Robert Teixeira, currently on the faculty at Queens University and Central Piedmont Community College, has collaborated with award-winning guitarist, Mary Akerman, in concert appearances.
Learn more about The Bechtler Ensemble here.
April 14, 11AM & 7:30PM Halton Theater, Central Campus
Irene Blair Honeycutt Distinguished Lecturer
Juan Felipe Herrera
Juan Felipe Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (2015-2016) and the first Latino to hold the position. Herrera is the author of thirty books, including collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels and picture books for children.
Learn more about Juan Felipe Herrera here.
Featured WordPlay Offering
After I spent months wondering if Covid had put Spinning Words into Gold out of print for good, my publisher was finally able to deliver two boxes of beautiful, brand new copies with thicker, sturdier paper, than the originals!
I still love this book years after its publication, in large part because it's full of writing wisdom, insight, and inspiration from so many writers, known and unknown, including Ray Bradbury, Mary Oliver, Naomi Shihab Nye, William Stafford, and a number of Charlotte writers who have gone on to write their own books, including Cheryl
Boyer (Counting Colors), Caroline Castle Hicks (Such Stuff As Stars Are Made Of) and Lisa Otter Rose (You've Got Verve, Jamie Ireland.)
For a limited time, even though my publisher's costs have gone up and he's passed them on to me, I'm selling them at the original price of $21.95 + tax and shipping through the end of March, to celebrate this new shipment's arrival! Things were looking very iffy for several months. You can learn more, order a copy, and/or even watch a
rare video of me discussing it here on my website.
[Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way]
by
Juan Felipe Herrera
". . . Juan Felipe Herrera imagines both “struggle and joy” as a sort of garden. He invites us to see that struggle and joy come from the same source, this garden, where he then invites us to gather. Or even, to flourish.
The lack of punctuation in the poem causes each individual word to start to act as an object in this myriad collection of things. The poem quickly becomes a dense gathering of objects, people, food, and nurturing. So too, the refrain, “Let us gather in a flourishing way” challenges me to imagine what flourishing looks like. I’m invited to add my own vision to the many images that Herrera strikes up vibrantly, as he does, for example, in the line “carne de nuestros hijos rainbows.”
That the poem is written in Spanish and English speaks to a kind of abundance that goes beyond a single language. I love the line breaks in this poem, how Herrera keeps his lines close and short, to emphasize the bilingual music he builds. Because of its music, this is the kind of poem that wants to be orated. It wants to be heard again and again. . .
I agree! And, while you can read below, I encourage you to listen to Herrera read "Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way," which you can do here. Now, here is the poem:
Let us gather in a flourishing way
with sunluz grains abriendo los cantos
que cargamos cada día
en el young pasto nuestro cuerpo
para regalar y dar feliz perlas pearls
of corn flowing árboles de vida en las cuatro esquinas
let us gather in a flourishing way
contentos llenos de fuerza to vida
giving nacimientos to fragrant ríos
dulces frescos verdes turquoise strong
carne de nuestros hijos rainbows
let us gather in a flourishing way
en la luz y en la carne of our heart to toil
tranquilos in fields of blossoms . . .
To continue reading, click here.
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay—so why not
revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's "flourish."
PROMPT:
What does it mean to you to flourish? It's time for another "Sprawl" to see where the word "flourish" will lead you in your writing.
How to Sprawl
- Put the word "flourish" in the center of a blank sheet of paper.
- Moving out from that center, free associate words and phrases for ten minutes,
letting one lead to another. When one strand of your Sprawl runs out, come on back to the center and go out in a different direction. You may want to circle your center word, or all your words. You may want to connect your words and phrases with lines. Experiment.
- Look over your Sprawl. Pick the most evocative idea, and Sprint until you have explored it as fully as you can.
- Craft your Sprint into a piece of writing.
Vary this process to suit yourself and your words. I tend to Sprawl when I know what I want to write about. I often start to see the finished piece taking shape in my mind as I jot down words and phrases, so I’m prone to move right into a draft, with my Sprawl propped alongside to refer to every few
paragraphs. If ideas for what will go into an essay, poem, or story, are coming fast and furious, a Sprawl is just the ticket. It's also a great way to find a subject, as in this exercise of beginning with a single word.
MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer,
is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and two collections of poetry, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her
clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours!
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