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The Well, a Cincinnati-based nonprofit, is offering its sixth year of Mindful Poetry Moments (MPM), bringing poetry and meditation to youth and adults in schools, social service organizations and in weekly virtual gatherings for free during April for National Poetry Month 2025. Mindful Poetry Moments was incubated with the national On Being Project in 2019.
Each week in April, participants of all ages receive recordings of creative listening prompts and poems curated around this year’s theme of Reconciliation — poems that center around themes of self-acceptance and self-love, affirming the natural world, each other, and ourselves.
This year’s curator is Manuel Iris. Manuel Iris dserved as the Poet Laureate of the City of Cincinnati from 2018 to 2020. In 2021, he was inducted as a poet into the National System of Art Creators (SNCA) of Mexico. He has published ten collections of poems in Spanish and English, including his most recent bilingual work The Parting Present / Lo Que Se irá (2022) from which he won the Ohioana Reader’s Choice Book Award.
Manuel has spoken about the powerful connection between mindfulness and creativity. In a short interview conducted with The Well, he stated: “I believe that, especially in current times, all humans have the need of silence, slowness, and contemplation…Silence is, to me, the space for creativity to happen. I find inspiration in silence and observation of the natural world.”
Selections for this year’s Mindful Poetry Moments include poetry by Wislawa Szymborska, Mary Oliver, Derek Walcott, and Manuel Iris himself, with each week including 5 days of audio resources and worksheets that combine mindful prompts to write poetry in response to and meaning-making questions for students and individuals to contemplate. Each week’s content features commissioned illustrations by artist Monica Andino. All of this year’s Mindful Poetry Moments content is available for free.
Additionally, to expand accessibility of the content to even more students, Mindful Poetry Moments content will also be presented in Spanish, with the poems translated by Manuel Iris himself.
In addition to providing Mindful Poetry Moments content in audio and video resources (with the latter featuring our new animated mascot!), The Well will host weekly virtual gatherings for poets and poetry lovers of all ages to listen, contemplate, and respond in writing to each featured poem. Each free virtual gathering, hosted on Zoom from 3:00 to 4:00pm every Wednesday throughout April, has a simple format for regular Mindful Poetry Moments participants and newcomers to enjoy. Each meeting begins with a meditation led by a mindfulness facilitator, then a reading of a poem selected by this year’s curator, after which a poetry facilitator provides a prompt for participants to respond, write to, and then share with the group. For this year’s Virtual Gatherings, The Well will be Savefeaturing all Ohio-based poets serving as poetry facilitators for each session: Christine Wilson, Erica Manto Paulson, and Manuel Iris.
The poems generated during these sessions can then be submitted for publication in The Well’s Mindful Poetry Moments anthology. For those unable to attend these gatherings but still want to write, The Well also posts each session on YouTube to ensure everyone has access to the meditation and prompt. The Well will additionally be hosting a virtual writing workshop for those who want a space to experiment with and edit their work before submitting to the publication.
After all the poetry is collected, in the summer, The Well will host a book launch and poetry reading of the 6th anthology in its new Walnut Hills location, where participants will be able to read their newly-published poetry to one another and to virtual participants.
I have selected for these sessions of Mindful Poetry these 4 poems that all talk about arriving to Self, arriving to knowing who you are, arriving to your place in the universe and within your own soul.
Manuel Iris, MPM 2025 Curator
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Contact: Patrick Raneses
Content & Event Coordinator, The Well
patrick@thewell.world
513-748-9694
For Access to Media Folder, please contact us.
Our MPM 2025 curator Manuel Iris
Illustrations created by Monica Andino this year!
Mindfulness Facilitator: Stacy Sims | Poetry Facilitator: Manuel Iris
Mindfulness Facilitator: Julia O. Bianco | Poetry Facilitator: Christine Wilson
Mindfulness Facilitator: Adriana Prieto Quintero | Poetry Facilitator: Erica Manto Paulson
Mindfulness Facilitator: Eddie Gonzalez | Poetry Facilitator: Manuel Iris
Facilitator: Sheila McMullin
About The Well / A Mindful Moment
Providing programs, practices and connection at the intersection of arts and wellness.
In different forms, The Well programs have been nourishing the Greater Cincinnati community since 2005. In 2019 we became the non-profit, A Mindful Moment. A Mindful Moment's mission is to improve the mental and emotional well-being, connectedness, and effectiveness of all citizens through arts integration, mindfulness, music, movement, and healing-centered practices.
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Our programs have been nourishing the community since 2005. In 2019, we became the non-profit, A Mindful Moment.
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We are a small yet mighty team, dedicated to making a big difference with what we have. Your support means the world to us.
