Write After Reading: Writing the Life Poetic has been a weekly online book club with poetry participation. It has alternated between my blog and Laura Salas’s blog.

For a couple of months now Laura and I have worked our way through reading and writing poetry together. The exercises have been both fun and enlightening. It seems the more I struggled against the exercises the more I got out of it once I actually did the work. Having a buddy to read and discuss the book with made it more fun and, of course, made me accountable to actually doing what I said I was going to do.

We’ve reached the end of our journey with this particular book. It feels like the right time. And now that we’re in the midst of summer, many readers have summer activities on their plate. I want to thank those of you who read along with us, whether or not you posted, and those who joined us in sharing our exercise here on the blogs. Poetry really can be a universal conversation.

The book we used, Writing the Life Poetic, by Sage Cohen, is so accessible. The chapters are short and the exercises are full of variety. Even if you didn’t get the chance to read along with us this time, I highly recommend the book.

Thank you again, to all who participated and cheered us on. Stay tuned for further adventures in Write After Reading. If you have a book you’d like us to consider for the club, please let us know.