IPTN Ezine Spring 2022: For a clear text, zoom in on full screen

New Poetry Club Session Dates

We are excited to confirm upcoming dates of our new Poetry Club for all those who are members of IPTN:

2nd session - 21st May 2022 with Carol Boland

3rd session - 23rd July 2022 with Bernie Walsh

4th session - 10th September 2022 with Elizabeth Fitzsimons

The sessions will be held on zoom. 

Please confirm you wish to attend two weeks before the session and we will send you your zoom invite.

We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Group Poem: How We Rise '21

 

Group Poem 

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step



Dance light-footed across the bog of softness

Still I rise, no blind eye turned to hold the mirror, my soul rises

Tough times do not last, but tough teams do

I imagine light arrowing through rain and sparkling like shiny confetti

Bridges will come if you follow the path, cross them or burn them, you,

Phoenix, can fly

Small, nourishing moments of quiet devotion

By dawn, the sun has whispered to each of the baby blooms in her care

I rise in praise of trees and water

Stick it Ginger! Go find your sacred space . . .

Go experience the grass on the other side

I dream of wide open spaces

Where I can dance naked in the sunlight

Dawn was breaking over the estuary

And those days, when life calls on you to weep - do.

I rise with the slow-dropping snow

The sheer reach of this mountain range uplifts me

The secret of the earth is its patience

You can't unring the bell

I drink to the smell of baby’s skin that was rare before Covid.

 

Poetry Therapy Ezine - Source of Poems in 'Poetry as Healer and Pandemic Collection'

Poetry Therapy Ezine Source of Poems in the “Poetry as Healer and Pandemic Collection (In order of appearance): I. Writing Into the Storm” – Expressing Our Stories and What We Feel: “From the Threshold” by Jane Butkin Roth [In Roth (Ed.), We Used To Be Wives: Divorce Unveiled Through Poetry. Fithian Press, 2002] “Fear” by J. Ruth Gendler [In Gendler’s The Book of Qualities. Turquoise Mountain Publications, 1984] “Dolor” by Theodore Roethke [In H. Vendler (Ed.), The Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. Tauris, 2003] “All Alone Inside My Very Own Skin” By Judith Viorst [In Viorst’s What Are You Glad About? What Are You Sad About? Atheneum/Simon & Schuster, 2016] “Writing into the Storm” by Lucy Adkins [In Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American West. Mariner Books/ Houghton Mifflin, 2004] “Waiting” by Jacob Trapp [In Studia Mystica Vol XII, No. 2&3 (Summer-Fall, 1989)] “Snowbound” by Natasha Lynne Vodges [In Social Work 25, 1, 1980] “History Will Remember” by Donna Ashworth. [https://ladiespassiton.com/2020/03/18/history-will-remember-when-the-world-stopped/] II. Strategies for Coping and Self-Soothing: “A Blessing of Presence” by John O’Donohue [In O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. Doubleday, 2008] “Breath of Life” by Donna Faulds [http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/resources_poetry.php] “Lockdown” by Richard Hendrick [https://faithconnector.s3.amazonaws.com/unitedpresbyterian/files/lockdown_by_brother_richard_hendrick.pdf] “Pandemic” by Ruth Ungar [https://images.shulcloud.com/686/uploads/PandemicPoem.PDF] “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45521/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud] “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry [In Berry’s Openings. Harcourt Brace, 1968] “Leisure by W. H. Davies [In Davies’ Songs Of Joy and Others. A. C. Fifield, 1911] “Speech to the Young” by Gwendolyn Brooks [In Brooks’ Blacks. Third World Press, 1991] “Optimism” by Jane Hirshfield [In Hirshfield’s Each Happiness Ringed by Lions: Selected Poems. Bloodaxe Books, 2005] “Let This Poem Be” by Deborah Cooper [https://itstartswithhope.tumblr.com/] “Beannacht” by John O’Donohue [In O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. Doubleday, 2008] III. Cultivating Gratefulness—Celebrating the Ordinary: “The Patience of Ordinary Things” by Pat Schneider [In Schneider’s Another River: New and Selected Poems. Amherst Writers and Artists Press, 2005] “Praying” by Mary Oliver [In Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver. Beacon Press, 2007] “A Hundred Objects Close By” by Mira Mirabai [http://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2013/08/mira-hundred-objects-close-by.html ] “Otherwise” by Jane Kenyon [In Kenyon’s Let Evening Come: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2005] “Lost and Found” by Imelda Maguire [In Maguire’s Shout If You Want Me to Sing. Summer Palace Press, 2004] IV. Finding Hope and Developing Courage-Awareness: “May 1915” by Charlotte Mews [https://allpoetry.com/May-1915] “Courage” by Anne Sexton [In Sexton’s The Awful Rowing Towards God. Houghton Mifflin, 1975] “Variation on a Theme by Rilke The Book of Hours, Book I, Poem, Stanza 1” by Denise Levertov [In Levertov’s Breathing the Water. New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1987] “The Unbroken” by Rashini Rea [Silver Linings: The Power of Trauma to Transform Your Life by Melissa West. Fair Winds Press, 2003] “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye [In Nye’s Words Under the Words: Selected Poems, 1995] “Somewhere in the World” by Linda Pastan [In Pastan’s Traveling Light. W.W. Norton & Company, 2011] “Sometimes” by Sheenagh Pugh [In Pugh’s Selected Poems, 1990] “The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass [In K. vanMeenen & C. Rossiter (Eds.), Giving Sorrow Words: Poems of Strength and Solace. National Association for Poetry Therapy, 2002] “Oh Hope” (excerpt) by Charlotte Smith [Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems, 1795] “A Small Grain of Hope” by Denise Levertov [Making Peace. New Direction Publishing, 2006] “Hopi Prayer” [In C. Rossiter & K. vanMeenen (Eds.), Giving Sorrow Words: Poems of Strength and Solace. National Association for Poetry Therapy, 2002]

Poetry Therapy Ezine vol 6 Iss 2 Autumn 2021

How We Rise - 10th IPTN Annual Conference

 IPTN are delighted to announce their 10th Annual Conference, How We Rise.

held on Zoom on Saturday 9 October 2021.

To register and pay, email irishpoetrytherapynetwork@gmail.com

Apologies for blurry programme. Check image for a better view!

Living with Mistakes - Two Group Poems

 Thank you to all those who attended our Living with Mistakes session on 14th and 15th August 21.

Here are the two group poems written by the participants on each day. 

Enjoy!

Group Poem 14/8/21

Currents and tides hide behind your eyes

when the river is still, I can see

reliving the unrepeatable current

feeling the depths of the river and absorbing it

moving gently and purposely over the earth

sensing the flow of nature

unrestrained boots towards the horizon.

Oh, Mother, carry me down to the river

down to the sea

Oh, Mother, carry me down to the river

no sounds just silence

flowing.

Group Poem 15/8/21

Ask Me

I do so miss the distractions

me myself and I,

what is stopping me from asking?

Rejoice for we can turn and look at the silent river and wait

and carry it for a little while

beneath the icy water unseen, flows cold and clear

no sounds just silence

my silent voice speaks

failing me forward.