Dispatches from Today’s Office Hours

Ah! Today’s Office Hours were gorgeous due in no small part to the generosity of all attendees. I am moved by how the reading of poems was just the beginning of our conversation. What then followed were the ways we interrogated the poems with such intention and curiosity and thought about them in the context of our own lives. It’s powerful to see how the wisdom sourced from our own memories, moments of joy, moments of defeat, moments of wonder provide some of the tools we use to read a poem. Such amazing stories and analysis spring forth from this. And then the exchange! We pooled our knowledge together to get through the reading of the poems—breaking apart words, digging into mythology and considering the writer’s “why.” Sitting with each other’s interpretations gave each poem even more dimension and weight. This was the case for Marilyn Nelson’s “How I Discovered Poetry” and Steven Cramer’s ‘For the Bullies of West Morris High.” Poetry is a group sport y’all! It was really a pleasure to hear the work of our attendees who shared works in various stages of progress, but none of them short of delivering very particular wonder.

Lastly, we wrote poems based on a prompt inspired by Marilyn Nelson’s “How I Discovered Poetry,”—prompt and poem included here. And WOW—each poem was such a distinct, poignant, and vulnerable meditation on the beginning of our relationships with words. Inspired by the robust and electrifying words. Humbled to witness our first time reading new poems. I don’t take the gift of this creative community lightly. I’ve been overjoyed all day. Thank you David, Elena, Julian, Devin, Alyssa, and Nola for such a sincere and rich fellowship. Cheers to more!