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Mindful Poetry Moments

Mindful Music Moments in Collaboration The On Being Project Offers Mindful Poetry Moments

Looking for our Virtual Gatherings? Visit the calendar here.

Mindful Poetry Moments, a collaboration between Mindful Music Moments and The On Being Project, offers a chance to pause and reflect on poetry’s ability to encounter ourselves, the world and the mystery of each other. This special collaboration began in 2019 as a way to provide young students an opportunity to encounter poetry in the course of a normal school day during National Poetry Month.

Participating schools, individuals and organizations were offered recordings of poets reading their work from two of The On Being Project’s content offerings: the On Being with Krista Tippett radio show and podcast and/or Poetry Unbound podcast. The audio was accompanied by mindful prompts and meaning-making questions like "Does this poem encourage gratitude? How?” and "What’s a line in this poem that brings a strong visual image to your mind?" You can see how one group of elementary students responded to Elizabeth Alexander’s “Ars Poetica #100” here. 

For the second year of Mindful Poetry, we were able to offer schools, individuals and social service organizations the content for free thanks to The On Being Project and the generous donations of individuals and organizations in The Wild Geese Collective. Additionally, what was planned to be two in-person gatherings transformed into weekly (and then monthly) virtual gatherings with poetry lovers from around the world. (You can revisit the recorded virtual gatherings and relish in the beauty of each other's poems here.)

Opportunities to engage with Mindful Poetry