Bread & Poetry

“One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for;
but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light.”
—James Baldwin

This month’s solstice-forward Bread & Poetry will feature Erin Jones, a Longmont-based poet whose work explores playfulness, spontaneity, the musicality of language, and the transcendent immanence of the day-to-day. For this event, we will explore how we are light-bearing beings—and how we can shine our light for others. Erin will lead us in some writing prompts, read some of her warm, infectious poetry, and talk about what writing means and how a poet’s lens can shape our world. We will also explore how writing can touch another’s life directly through a special solstice exercise.
 

Erin Jones writes with spontaneity, a tender open-heart, humor and wonder. She builds content from her day-to-day experiences; she waters house plants, puts honey in her tea, loves people, cooks food for them, circles around in nature, regularly refines her daydreaming skills, and strings words together to tell the truth. Her raw east coast, Jersey roots blend well with her Colorado living, bringing forth a mix of gravel, mountain, city and ocean.

I know what is mine
I know what to keep and what to throw back
I know what parts to eat and what to cut away
I know where to draw the line and when to let it slack
The line slacks as I speak.
—Erin Jones

"Poetry, like bread, is for everyone." -Roque Dalton

Bread & Poetry is for people interested in language, particularly poetry, as a doorway to something sacred inside themselves. Mixing experiential writing exercises with lively Q & A and a range of featured poets, Bread & Poetry serves up language that dissolves borders between self and Self; self and other. It is a way to hold space for a community of undefended hearts, each speaking a love language at once personal and universal. As the poet David Whyte says, “Poetry is language against which you have no defenses.”