In Frost’s famous poem, he writes, “knowing how way leads on to way,/I doubted if I should ever come back.” How does way lead on to way in our work? If we were to go back to work-in-progress and pay close attention to, say, a sentence, a line, a phrase, a syllable, a phoneme, might we discover some other roads to take? And if we took one or another of these roads, would we have the courage to follow them to destinations we hadn’t intended or imagined before? Another way to think about this: if we found the road not yet taken and followed it, might it lead us from darkness to light, enslavement to freedom, concealment to revelation, from Egypt to Sinai?

In our session, we’ll look at some exemplary texts–mostly poems–, paying close attention to how they move from moment to moment. Then we’ll look at some of our work-in-progress, including work we started today, to see if we can hear or see some hints of roads not yet taken. Finally, we’ll do a little more writing, setting out on one or another of those roads to see where it leads.

This session will be grounded in several contemplative practices intended to help us listen and look attentively and receptively at the language in the works of others and our own work. These exercises might increase our ability to recognize the subtler roads taken in the work of others and to sense the possibility of roads not yet taken in our own work.

This session is part of a Pop-Up Writing Workshop sponsored by the Collegeville Institute. It will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church in Asheville, N.C. For more information, visit the Collegeville Institute website.