For the next few months, we are sharing writing that happened during AWA’s marathon weekend of writing workshops, Write Around the World. This is one way we are celebrating the AWA-certified workshop leaders & writers who joined together to raise money in support of AWA. Thank you to those who shared their voices in each workshop and especially to those who have offered their words to be shared in this space. If you’re inspired by our work and would like to be part of the fundraiser, please donate!
Writing from members of the Irish chapter of AWA:
I write because . . .
I write because a river of notebooks holds my life
Words that flow downstream as I row my way
Through turbulent waters and grief
Passing mountains of stanzas, islands of prompts
Moments of madness, named recorded,
Told to a book, saved in the riverbank libraries
Washed with memory ripples, pages and pages
Piling to tell, to hear this voice, to hope to read,
be read. A litany, a history, a gift of remembrance.
Anne O’Connell, AWI
I write because . . .
I write because I see
What some around me don’t.
I want to make the seeing strong
Tho’ often fear I won’t.
I write because words come
And dance from under waves:
Silver words, and blue ones
And red words that amaze!
I write ‘cos music beckons
To swell and ebb of sound:
The flow of “L”
The soft of “S”
The roll of “R” around
The kick of “K”
The clear of “T”
The plosive of surprise
The hiss of “C”
The close of “M”
The pulses that arise.
I write because, tho’ roots go deep
And disappear from sight
Into the dark and dense of me,
They hunger for the light.
And so I write and write and write
And write and write and write
‘Cos if I write a world of words
This world may grow more right.
Maire O’Donohoe, AWI
A river of notebooks
Flowing Lethewards
Let me catch the river in spate
Bathe in the waters
Savour the sibilant sounds
Sing to the lilting rhythms
Tune in to the Muses.
I write to replenish my river
My Ganges, my Jordan,
My life-bearing flood.
And when my ashes float away on the tide,
Let others hear my voice in the current
And drink deeply from the waters of love.
Eilís Coe, AWI