WORKSHOP 1

Created via a series of prompts where participants had to remember a meaningful place on Earth. They were then led through a sensory guided meditation that invited them to imagine a fictional planet. These are responses to a juxtaposition of memories of a real place (I remember), and a fictional, imagined planet or place (Here I see.)

DONNA

Reddish earth, sun warmed stones. 

Clear transparent water, mystical sounds of a brook.
Is my Father following me alone?
The world is all sky singing in my solar plexus.
Filled with birds, unseen
My hands are empty and desire is a smooth stone.
The grass was saw-edged and cut.
Saw-edges grass slices like knives.
The sky is a vast infinite dawn, pink. 

I remember the lush green grass behind the cottage. 

I remember the sunsets over the lake that were almost obscene.
I remember the silt, cloying but soft, filling the bay.

I remember the cold of the mornings.

FINAL POEM

FOUND POEM BY DONNA DAVIS

How have I found poetry?

When

Listening for

A name I don’t remember,

The ghost of me saying:

Sorry, sorry.

Listen…

The solar plexus, resisting, pressing for air,

Found signs of wilderness, where

No words are

Chasing the voice in the river:

Everything is numbered, existing

In parallel,

The purple night the yellow smiling day,

There are no words.

Then, is

Daylight through the window

Eating the summer

To a crisp, crying:

Nothing, nothing!

Nothing?

Is this the name of me:

This? (Sorry.)

Kaleidoscope-- was that a piece

Of being born? The sheets

Drying, falling

Out of the frame

Into a hungry distance,

La voix lactique.

Messy rainbows, sterile flamingoes,

Fossilized sea lilies,

And over the dark horizon

Fireballs of jello pudding--

Oh, God, how

My love

Was conducted imperfectly!

Rush to the door. You have

Two minutes to

Be infinite as rain.

Be ruthless!; No words

Can be obscene, here.

The sandy beaches of Donegal,

Not very pure or true.