This month’s workshop, on the theme of strangers, was requested by the group, and it turned out to be fascinating.
Our first poem by Dorianne Laux, was ‘For the Sake of Strangers’. The opening lines really struck everyone:
No matter what the grief, its weight,
we are obliged to carry it.
The second poem was by a poet that was new to many of us, Mark Turbyfill. His taught and powerful short poem ‘Strangers’ focused our attention on the experience of finding strangers both distant and familiar, known and unknown. For example, in these lines:
I am seeing and seeing strangers
Who are not strangers,
For there is something in their eyes,
And about their faces
That whispers to me
Then, for a change, we listened to a song and discussed the lyrics. A classic: Billy Joel, ‘The Stranger’. The idea raised by this work, that we can think about being strangers to ourselves as well as to others took our conversation in interesting directions.
The first and last verses capture the essence of the song:
Well we all have a face
That we hide away forever
And we take them out and show ourselves
When everyone has gone
Some are satin some are steel
Some are silk and some are leather
They’re the faces of the stranger
But we love to try them on
You may never understand
How the stranger is inspired
But he isn’t always evil
And he isn’t always wrong
Though you drown in good intentions
You will never quench the fire
You’ll give in to your desire
When the stranger comes along.
Even for those in the group who were not Joel fans, this proved a really illuminating listen!
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