Sponsored by NC Writers’ Network-West

Poetry and Compassion
A workshop with Michele Bombardier & Karen Paul Holmes

More than understanding another’s perspective,

poetry helps us experience other perspectives. We will discuss how poetry can change our relationship to our past, helping us gain compassion for ourselves and others and how poets can bring this connection to the page. You will leave with writing prompts to continue to explore these concepts in your own work.

As an award-winning poet & neurological specialist, Michele brings insights into the connection between poetry and compassion and how poetry is neurologically activating for both the writer and reader, offering cognitive, emotional, and physical benefit.

Michele Bombardier is the author of Don't Ask Me How I Know, finalist for the Washington Prize, and What We Do, a Washington Book Award finalist. She won the 2024 NORward Prize and served as Poet Laureate of Bainbridge Island, WA. Her work has been on NPR and set to music. Recent poems appear in New Ohio Review, JAMA, Atlanta Review and others. CerJfied in narraJve medicine, Michele worked for decades as a speech-language pathologist and a neurological specialist. She is the founder of Fishplate Poetry, raising funds for humanitarian aid.

Tuesday, November 10, 10 am-Noon, $40 United Community Bank (Community Room) 95 US-64, Hayesville, NC

Karen Paul Holmes lives in Atlanta and Hiawassee and has taught at John C. Campbell Folk School. She received the 2023 Lascaux Poetry Prize and a Special MenJon in the 2024 Pushcart Prize Anthology. Credits include The Writer's Almanac, The Slowdown, Plume, Gargoyle, and books: No Such Thing as Distance and Untying the Knot. Holmes hosted NCWN’s Writers’ Night Out in the mountains for 10 years and conJnues to host Atlanta’s Side Door Poets. She has an MA in musicology from University of Michigan and is also a freelance writer.

To register, send your email address & $40 check payable to “NC Writers’ Network” to:
Sandy Benson, 310 Quail Cove Circle Warne, NC 28909 Walk-ins also welcome.
For more info: yostcatherine70@gmail.com