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Mindful Music Moments

Imagine an entire school – students, teachers, and administrators – taking time each morning to turn inward together, and listen to a brief mindfulness prompt and world-class music.

Available For: Schools Schools Organizations Organizations Groups & Families Groups & Families Individuals Individuals

The Well's programs combine best practices in arts and wellness and are designed in partnership with those they serve. How do we create our programs? In partnership with others and especially those we serve.

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We love collaborating with local, national and international community partners and peoples in a variety of arts programming and mindfulness practices.

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Engage with Poems, Poets, Mindful Facilitators, Weavers, and a Global Community. Mindful Poetry 2023

As we look ahead to the start of April, we're excited to announce the current Mindful Poetry Moments poems for each week and the Mindfulness and Poetry Facilitators for this year's sessions! The theme for this month's selected poems is Our Stories, Our Narratives, selected by Co-Curators Yalie Saweda Kamara and Rimel Kamran. In addition to being featured during our Mindful Poetry Moments sessions next month, they will also be included with Mindful Music Moments' mindfulness content available to both our Mindful Music Moments schools and to anyone who wants to sign up. Read about our planned poems and the facilitators below!

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April 5th, "My First Memory (of Librarians)" by Nikki Giovanni

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Mindfulness Facilitator: Samantha Weiss

Sam Weiss (she/her) is a California native currently working as a social worker/therapist in the East Bay, CA. She integrates trauma-informed movement and mindfulness practices into her personal and professional life to support well being and connection to others and the natural world.

Poem Facilitator: Yalie Saweda Kamara

Yalie Saweda Kamara is a Sierra Leonean-American writer, educator, and researcher from Oakland, California. Selected as the 2022-2023 Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate (2-year term), she is the editor of the anthology What You Need to Know About Me: Young Writers on Their Experience of Immigration (The Hawkins Project, 2022) and the author of A Brief Biography of My Name (African Poetry Book Fund/Akashic Books, 2018) and When the Living Sing (Ledge Mule Press, 2017). Kamara has been a finalist for the National Poetry Series competition and the Brunel International African Poetry Prize and a semifinalist for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She earned a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Cincinnati, an MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University, Bloomington and an MA in French Culture and Civilization from Middlebury College. Yalie is the Director of Creative Youth Leadership at WordPlay Cincy and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati. For more, visit her website: www.yaylala.com

April 12th, "Pronounciation" by Leora Kava

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Mindfulness Facilitator: Brooke Thomas

Brooke Thomas (she/her) is a high school math teacher and mentor, trained in facilitating meditation and mindfulness practices for individuals and small groups. She advocates for the integration of mindfulness in education as a way to promote mental health wellness and create equitable and inclusive learning communities.

Poem Facilitator: Rimel Kamran

Rimel Kamran is a current senior at the Summit Country Day School and the Inaugural Cincinnati Youth Poet Laureate. Her poems aim to build community, celebrate diversity, share her Pakistani-American and Muslim identity, and weave the sciences with storytelling. She has received awards from the Scholastic Arts and Writing Competition, Mount St. Joseph University, and Democracy and Me and her work has been featured in The Weight Journal and Blue Marble Review. She serves on the Executive Board for the National Diversity Coalition, a student-led organization dedicated to implementing diversity and inclusion practices in schools and was selected for the Regional Youth Leadership Program hosted by the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. Rimel is also the founder of South Asians for Medicine, an online page dedicated to bringing awareness to South Asian health disparities and advocating for inclusivity in healthcare. Her work centers around her belief that both poetry and medicine are healing in their abilities to foster human connections and promote active empathy. 

April 19th, "Possible" by Carlina Duan

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Mindulness Facilitator: Stacy Sims

Poem Facilitator: Samyak Shertok

Samyak Shertok's poems appear in Best New Poets, Blackbird, The Cincinnati Review, Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, The Iowa Review, KROnline, New England Review, Shenandoah, Waxwing, and elsewhere. A finalist for the National Poetry Series, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, and the Jake Adam York Prize, he has received fellowships from Aspen Words, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Originally from Nepal, he holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Utah and is currently a Hughes Fellow in Creative Writing at Southern Methodist University. 

April 26th, "Remember" by Joy Harjo

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Mindulness Facilitator: Haleh Liza Gafori

Haleh Liza Gafori is a translator, vocalist, poet, and educator born in New York City of Persian descent. She grew up hearing recitations of Persian poetry and has maintained and deepened her connection through singing and translating the poetry of various Persian poets. Her book, GOLD, translations of poems by Rumi the 13th century sage and mystic was released in 2022 by New York Review Books/NYRB Classics, distributed by Penguin Random House. In 2023, she received a grant from The New York State Council of the Arts to create a cross-media performance piece weaving translations from GOLD with music and original text.

Poem Facilitator: Sheila McMullin

Sheila McMullin is a poet, writing coach, and budding somatic herbalist. She is the author of daughterrarium from Cleveland State University Poetry Center and an Advisory Board Member of the Contemporary Irish Arts Center of Los Angeles. A fierce advocate for youth storytellers, she is a proud co-editor of Humans of Ballou and The Day Tajon Got Shot, both written by teen authors and published by Shout Mouse Press. Through her love for words, herbs, and composting, she crafts handmade paper out of herbal marc, seeds, and recycled materials as an act of devotion to the natural world. Based in Los Angeles, she works with city magick to turn seeds of ideas into richly crafted and moving stories with storytellers of all experience levels through one-on-one coaching, creative workshops, and meditative practices. Nourishing heart and intuition to tell our stories, visit www.thewritemagick.com

This year’s Mindful Poetry illustrations courtesy Cincinnati-based illustrator and educator Julie Klear Essakalli.

Julie Klear Esskalli –  born in Germany, raised in the USA, resident of Marrakech, Morocco –  is a studio artist, art teacher, children’s book illustrator, mother of two, and the co-founder & creative director of the award-winning company, Zid Zid Kids.

More Mindful Poetry Moments Events

On Sunday, April 23rd, weaver and writer (and former Well Associate Director!) Rowe Schnure will be hosting "Threads of Reflection: A Community Poetry and Weaving Experience," a special in-person, writing and weaving event for Mindful Poetry Moments. The event is free and we encourage people to register so we can be sure to have enough materials on hand for everyone. Additionally, on May 3rd from 4-5pm, Sheila McMullin and Rimel Kamran will be leading "The Craft of Mindful Poetry," a virtual writing workshop for participants of our MPM 23 virtual gatherings to nurture their submissions for the MPM 2023 poetry compilation.

Rowe Schnure is a weaver and facilitator known for their sculptural weaving and functional woven projects that explore themes of ritual and spirituality. Their unique woven sculptures have gained attention for their ability to blend traditional weaving techniques with contemporary concepts. In addition to their art practice, Schnure has created and facilitates Contemplative Weaving classes and workshops that consider the physical process of weaving, an interlocking of horizontal and vertical threads, as a way to understand the unique intersections and turning points of our internal and external realities.

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