Category Archives: Announcements

Winter Island, Salem

http://www.yourdailypoem.com

It is February and every wild thing is hungry.
The earth is tipped in white snow
caught like a jellyfish in a net of shadow.
 
The bay is cold as Jupiter,
ducks drifting like orphans
in a galaxy of ice.
 
But, today a sun, golden
as a loaf of bread
rises from the fire of the hearth.
 
Gulls scoop hooked beaks
into the sea in search of fish.
Like them, I sink in my teeth.
 
I tilt my face toward heaven
and fill the empty basket
of my heart with light.

Shelter in Place

Am I the only one who finds this phrase liberating? A tyranny of choices reduced to the lowest common denominator, a frosted cake cut in half, then in half again, and again until all that’s left is one manageable slice.

My body, a restless cat always pacing, is forced to rest for the first time, an epitaph floating like a silent film caption over my head: She did not find, she created her own happy place.

For me it’s like someone just gave me one square of an endless rolling lawn and asked me to plant on it a vineyard, winding clusters of plum and gold that call me up, up like Jack’s beanstalk closer toward dreams, showing me my ideas don’t need acres to grow, only inches, not weeks of sunlight or exotic soil, just the dim glow of a 75 watt light bulb in a familiar room.

Shelter in place to me is a challenge: If I can’t leave my country, my state, my house, what world can I create for myself? Like Aslan breathing life into Narnia, I conjure up an oak tree for shade, a lemonade to cool, a book to comfort with words touching in paragraphs, that defy social distance, that step in line together without fear even as supermarket clerks count bodies like apples, placing them in cleanly spaced rows.

Shelter in place. To me it’s a call to root, and root I do, using my Covid check to buy a new couch, the first couch I’ve ever bought for the first place of my own in half a decade. It’s a teal couch, a vintage Chesterfield with silver pins along the arms that sparkle like marquesite, a couch that invites a body not just to shelter, but to lounge like Rita Hayworth in a red dress on her belly, high heels kicked up, the way starlets lounged on the screen before women traded in livelihoods for careers. Before Instagram and instant messages captured everyone’s deliciously idle moments and families started spreading out across the country, leaving each other in search of what? Adventure? Change? The American Dream?

Shelter in place. Another way to say build a nest. Gather up bits of colored string, all the precious things of past and present, weave them together, then crawl inside, button down the hatches and hunker down.

Shelter in Place. To me it’s a license to stretch out like a cat in a pool of sunlight, eyes closed. Not an order so much as a wish whispered between lovers in darkness God bless. Sleep tight. Sweet dreams.

Published online at https://www.journalofexpressivewriting.com/post/shelter-in-place

New online Writing Workshops I’m teaching this summer

for all levels beginning June 4th. See below for details.

Poet’s Companion Writing Group

June 4-June 25, 2021, Fridays from 2-3pm on Zoom

Each session of this four-week workshop will focus on exploring a different writing prompt, allowing us to take time to write separately before coming together to share what we’ve written. Working from the book The Poet’s Companion by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux, we’ll aim to spark ideas for more in-depth poems as we support and encourage each other.  This hour-long workshop is geared toward writers of all levels.  Poet and journalist Kristin D’Agostino currently teaches writing at New England College. Her work has been featured in The Paterson Literary Review, on Poets Online and on Vermont Public Radio.

Cost: $32 through Charlotte Senior Center. Email me at k.dagostino@gmail.com for more information or to sign up.

Exploring Your Roots Memoir Writing Workshop

August 5- September 9, 2021, Thursdays, 2-3:30pm on Zoom

In this six-week memoir-writing class we will read poetry, graphic novels and memoirs by well-known writers including Colette, Marjane Satrapi and Maria Mazziotti Gillan that explore various cultures through the lens of family, foods and tradition.  We will then write and share our own memoirs with the aim of exploring our own family heritage. Writer and educator Kristin D’Agostino writes about Italy and her Italian-American roots for Italian America magazine.

Cost: $72 through Charlotte Senior Center. Email me at k.dagostino@gmail.com for more information or to sign up.

Calling All Poetry Lovers: Virtual Reading on January 27, 6:30 pm

I’m hosting a poetry reading and open mic later this month at the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library. It’s on Wednesday, January 27 at 6:30 pm and will feature Vermont poets Geof Hewitt, Tricia Knoll and Joanne Mellin. The open mic spots are all filled up , but you can still hunker down at home to watch!

Sign up here to attend.