ABOUT WAG POETS

The WAG poetry group meets twice a month. We offer a judgement-free space to read/have your work heard by poets of widely differing styles and aesthetics; and to ask for specific feedback you want to further your work. All comments are offered in good faith, and intended to lift up the strengths of a piece. The writing ultimately and always belongs to the writer.

Even when we don’t have new work to bring, we use our time to seek ideas for moving ahead, or finding the right vehicle or voice for an inchoate idea. Often we discuss specific aspects of writing poetry; or write together, sharing our words in the moment. We explore our vulnerability alongside our vision, celebrating each individual voice with equal attention. While some of us have published or seek to publish our work, that is neither a focus nor a requirement for participation.

IN HONOR OF THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING:

Instructions on Not Giving Up

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

by Ada Limón, the current U.S. Poet Laureate. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 15, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets

About WAG Poets

WAG Poets meet in person in the gallery the second Monday and final Thursday of the month starting at 1:30 pm. We continue to welcome new members. There is a $5 fee per person for each session to help defray WAG expenses.

Please contact Sarah Bartlett at sarbar66@gmail.com for more information.