University of Toronto's Poet in Community

Negative Capability: Finding Peace in a Busy World

Join us on November 19 at 7:30 in the Round Room at Massey College, at the northwest corner of the Quad.

John Keats called it  “ capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”   A meditative moment, a work of art, nature: how do we free ourselves, however briefly, from the day’s demands, so that we may regenerate and restore our full capacity for humanity and compassion?  Two poets, Ronna Bloom and John Donlan explore their experience of literature and healing with moderator Dr. Allan Peterkin.

For more information, have a look here.

Well, maybe not everything.

But if you’re on your way to the second session of “Am I? — A Writing Series about Identity and Change” the room location is changed for today only.

We’ll be in the South Sitting Room at Hart House. If you get lost, ask at the Hub.

Registration is closed because of the capacity of the room but will reopen for the last session where we will return to the lap of luxury in the East Common Room.

Am I? – A Writing Series About Identity and Change

Do you ever feel you don’t know who you are? Or who you thought you were no longer fits? We have many identities: one you might have in your family, or others give you, one in your studies, or in the music you love. But we aren’t static, and nothing’s locked down. Like staring into a kaleidoscope, it can be disorienting, but also, maybe, freeing. In these three writing sessions, begin to trace the threads of who you might be. Ask yourself: who am I in this in moment of transition; who am I becoming?

Session 1. What They Said About You (or, Whose Autobiography is this Anyway?)

Session 2. I’m Not the Kind of Person Who…

Session 3. Be Good to Yourself, Whoever You Are

October 31, November 7, 14, 2012

Wednesdays Noon-1PM

Hart House

Writing in The Spirit of Connection (or, When You Meet the Stranger, Say Hello)

Who is the stranger? Mostly we think of people we don’t know, those new to us, as strangers. But the stranger is also myself when I do something out of character; I say ‘that’s not me.’ How do you encounter what’s unfamiliar where you find it? Fear? Curiousity? In this series, use writing to explore coming up against the other who is both within and without, and saying hello.

October 11, 18, 25, 2012

Thursdays Noon-1Pm

Multi-Faith Centre

Writing in The Spirit of Connection (or, When You Meet the Stranger, Say Hello)

Who is the stranger? Mostly we think of people we don’t know, those new to us, as strangers. But the stranger is also myself when I do something out of character; I say ‘that’s not me.’ How do you encounter what’s unfamiliar where you find it? Fear? Curiousity? In this series, use writing to explore coming up against the other who is both within and without, and saying hello.

October 11, 18, 25, 2012

Thursdays Noon-1Pm

Multi-Faith Centre

Register here:  http://uoft.me/poet

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Am I? – A Writing Series About Identity and Change

Do you ever feel you don’t know who you are? Or who you thought you were no longer fits? We have many identities: one you might have in your family, or others give you, one in your studies, or in the music you love. But we aren’t static, and nothing’s locked down. Like staring into a kaleidoscope, it can be disorienting, but also, maybe, freeing. In these three writing sessions, begin to trace the threads of who you might be. Ask yourself: who am I in this in moment of transition; who am I becoming?

Session 1. What They Said About You (or, Whose Autobiography is this Anyway?)

Session 2. I’m Not the Kind of Person Who…

Session 3. Be Good to Yourself, Whoever You Are

October 31, November 7, 14, 2012

Wednesdays Noon-1PM

Hart House

You are cordially invited to the Toronto launch
of Ronna Bloom’s

Cloudy with a Fire in The Basement 

Thursday September 27, 2012
6PM-8:30PM
Supermarket
268 Augusta Avenue
Kensington Market

The first series of workshops for 2012/2013 starts in October 2012. Everyone is welcome. Here’s all you need to know:

Writing in The Spirit of Connection (or, When You Meet the Stranger, Say Hello)

Who is the stranger? Mostly we think of people we don’t know, those new to us, as strangers. But the stranger is also myself when I do something out of character; I say ‘that’s not me.’ How do you encounter what’s unfamiliar where you find it? Fear? Curiousity? In this series, use writing to explore coming up against the other who is both within and without, and saying hello.

October 11, 18, 25, 2012

Thursdays Noon-1Pm

Multi-Faith Centre

This collaborative poem emerged from the Hart House series “A Writer’s Process: The Inside Story” March 2012. Participants were asked to take a line or a phrase they’d written in the three week series and to write it on a flipchart on the last day. The poem was put together by Poet in Community and Hart House Writer in Residence, Ronna Bloom.

The Inside Story

More than just the weather has my spirit soaring.

I am at this poetry workshop. I have absolutely no idea what to expect.

The teller sees the marks on the walls and joins them into new constellations, takes the disorder, the unknowing, births stories.

Like the fake sand, synthetic; the fake coconut attempts to be alive,
attempts to let the white creamy paste bury it.

Growth can’t be achieved without risks.

Why does it feel like I am always putting out fires?

Did the same green grass meet them,
did the same blue skies mock them?

The blueprint email informed the meeting will take place in the Bickersteth Room. It was locked. I felt a sudden strange feeling of impending doom.

I really really think things are going to be Okay.

A breath between words

…an everlasting puncture/bruise…

A break is not to do anything at all.

Two lines I heard at the workshop:
“All that can happen is that I might feel something.”
“What did I survive for…to stand cowering?”

We don’t talk,
yet I see her.
she sees me
we talk that way.

I am still listening to the conversation below.

A Writer’s Process: The Inside Story

Presented by The Hart House Literary & Library Committee

Is there a story inside the story you’re trying to write or a poem beneath the poem? What are the truths you want to share? We carry ourselves like onions with so many layers; the more access we have to the layers, the richer our work and our lives. In these 3 sessions, we’ll do exercises to tap into the truths we carry and might not even know are there. Get a read on the inside story; share it with yourself and perhaps others.

Here’s a note from the editor of Echolocation Magazine:

Echolocation magazine would like to tell the Poet-in-Community community that our issue 12 deadline is fast approaching. Get in your poetry, prose, creative non-fiction, scripts, plays and artwork in by February 29, 2012. The journal is produced and run by the graduate students of the University of Toronto, and while we welcome submissions from everyone, Echolocation very much supports and benefits writers in the Toronto community.

As well, Echolocation is inviting entries for our 2012 poetry contest on the theme of revisions/revisiting. This is an exciting opportunity for a poet to have his or her poem produced as a limited edition letterpress broadside at Massey College. In lieu of a cash prize, the winner will receive 5 copies of the broadside and be invited to read at the launch. 5 runner-ups will have their poems appear in in a digital e-chapbook, which I hope to produce as a letterpress chapbook at a later date. The entry fee should be quite affordable for students at $12, and up to two poems can be submitted, up to a maximum of 50 lines each. Deadline is April 7, 2012.

Full guidelines can be found on our blog at http://www.echolocationmag.wordpress.com and at http://echolocationmag.submishmash.com/submit.

Good luck!