Grailville, public library encourage poetry, sharing

Poet and teacher Pauletta Hansel leads a group of 13 women toward spiritual and personal growth in her weekly Practice of Poetry class at Grailville, a retreat center that takes up more than 300 acres of farmland in Loveland. 

The women meet in a 19th-century Victorian home where they learn, write, listen and share their work with one another.
 
In one of her most recent classes, Hansel says the group of writers looked at the “events, people and places that live on in our memory in a way that we always come back to them as personal touchstones.” 

The women work together to see what they can “make come alive” in each other’s work, Hansel says. Just this past week, they had the opportunity to share their work on a larger scale through their partnership with The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County for the 15th annual Poetry in the Garden Series. 

Seven of the 13 women from Practice of Poetry read their work in front of the audience of 58. Though most have read their poems in front of others before, Hansel says the event provided many of them with their first real opportunity to share in a more public way.   

“One woman read a poem that she had brought recently to craft class, and that was about a moment when both her parents were still alive, and she walked in and saw them in a very quiet, intimate moment at the kitchen table,” Hansel says. “It was about how moving that was for her to see her parents sitting quietly holding hands and taking that moment to—you know, [with] illness and their children’s worry swirling around them—to just be quiet and just be in love.” 

It’s these powerful and important life moments that Hansel’s poets and other community members have the opportunity to share during the Poetry in the Garden Series, which features contest winners in addition to local and regional poets who appreciate the art of poetry. 

“They’ve worked incredibly hard to promote and create a group of readers that is really diverse,” Hansel says. “There are some academically connected poets, but most in the group are community poets. They are people who are working in other walks of life who are using poetry as a way to communicate.”

The series also provides audience members with the chance to read their work at an open mic session that follows each set of readings. 

Hansel says participation in the Poetry in the Garden Series was incredibly meaningful to her group of poets because many of them are inspired by listening to what they hear. 

“Just coming and having the opportunity to use writing as a way to pay attention to their own inner lives and listen to themselves and be listened to by other women is the most important thing.”

Do Good: 

• Learn more about Grailville's programs, and register to participate. A new Practice of Poetry series will begin this summer with registration opportunities coming soon.

• Attend readings or share your own work at the Poetry in the Garden Series, which takes place at 7 p.m. each Tuesday in April.

• Like Grailville and The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County on Facebook to keep up with each organization's latest news and events.

By Brittany York

Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.