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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.

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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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A True Blessing: 5 Years Of Mindful Poetry Reaches All Ages

Students and visiting artist Julia O Bianco at John P Parker Elementary (Cincinnati Public Schools) show off their magazine collages and collaborative poem on the board inspired by the poem "Small Kindnesses" by Danusha Laméris.

It’s April 2024–National Poetry Month–and 90 5th-grade students at Wilson Elementary eagerly find their seats in the cafeteria. Their ears immediately perk up when they hear a familiar voice. “Hello, it’s time for Mindful Poetry Moments,” says Stacy Sims, The Well’s Founder & Executive Director and the famous voice of Mindful Music Moments that Wilson Elementary hears each morning. But instead of music, today they are listening to the poem “Small Kindnesses” by Danusha Laméris. After the mindful moment, the sound of scribbling pencils fills the cafeteria as they write their own poems listing small kindnesses. Soon, sounds of writing are replaced by scissors, construction paper, and fluttering magazines as they cut and glue collages of kindness–led by Artist In Residence Julia O. Bianco. 

Over the course of April, The Well engaged 140 students throughout Cincinnati with this practice of poetry and collage as part of its Mindful Poetry Moments (MPM) program. From these special visits, 13 original poems written or co-written by 37 students in grades K-5 were published in this year’s annual MPM anthology.

Incubated in 2020 with The On Being Project and now having completed its 5th anniversary season, MPM holds a grounded space for mindfulness and poetry in four major ways: daily mindfulness content for schools and individuals, special engagements with students in schools, regular virtual gatherings for over 100 adults around the world, and an annual publication of new poetry works by all ages.

Our 2024 theme “Ways of Loving, Ways of Giving” emerged when curator Haleh Liza Gafori selected our poems for inspiration: “Song” by Adrienne Rich, “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, “Small Kindnesses” by Danusha Laméris, and “A Blessing” by Samyak Shertok. Each spoke to “heartfelt people, navigating the ups and downs of life, celebrating, grieving, and allowing poetry to open their hearts and inspire them to tell their own stories,” as Haleh wrote in her foreword.

By The Numbers

  • Our Virtual Gatherings in April held space for 130 participants from 17 US States plus Great Britain.
  • Our 5th-Anniversary Anthology published 112 new poems by 114 unique poets. They represented 12 US States plus Scotland and the UK. 60 of those poems were written by 81 unique students in grades K-5.

A student at Academy of World Languages (Cincinnati Public Schools) Afterschool Cr8 Club making their poetry collage.

In our April virtual gatherings, guest facilitators shared an opening meditation, reflection and a writing prompt inspired by one of the curated poems, 10 minutes of writing time, and group sharing. From those deeply profound hour-long gatherings emerged 52 new published poetry works (often generated in those brief 10 minutes) by 33 different poets from around the world. 

The Well published an additional 60 poems in total–written or co-written–by 81 different students– the most poems by students ever received or published for MPM. 

One especially moving poem was written by Seattle 4th-grade student Arjun. Following some health difficulties in the family, Arjun felt inspired by “A Blessing" by Samyak Shertok to use his voice through poetry to express his gratitude for being alive.

In short, we feel truly blessed by this poetry community who continues to show up year after year in support of each other and awe-inspiring poetry.

A True Blessing

By Arjun Kodukula, Grade 4
Inspired by “A Blessing” by Samyak Shertok

A blessing you and me
up and down
left and right
the chances that life is here
that we have life never mind the fact that we live like this,
these luxuries we do not care about
these small blessings

This life is a blessing
A blessing worth more than a million dollars

The fact we live, the way we are fortunate enough to open our eyes and see the passing days

This is a blessing, a blessing giving us these precious years of our life,
this is more than one blessing
It is a true blessing.

2024 Curator Haleh Liza Gafori kicked off our August Book Launch.

Former Cincinnati Poet Laureate, Mexican-born American poet and educator Manuel Iris is our 2025 curator. We hope you join us to celebrate our humanity together this April. Photo by Hailey Bollinger, courtesy of Manuel Iris.

2024 Curator Haleh Liza Gafori in Morocco. Photo by Manny Inoa, courtesy of Haleh Liza Gafori.

 

Poetry invites us to receive, re-feel, relive moments from our own lives....to inhale moments from other people’s lives: to discover things we didn’t even know were there.

Haleh Liza Gafori, Mindful Poetry Moments 2024 Curator

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