I will be leading the workshop “Awake at Work” at the annual Church Administrators Conference at Crieff Hills. If this is you, read on.
A conversation with a poet-physician, a poet-patient, and the Mount Sinai poet-in-residence.
With Dr. Shane Neilson, author of Dysphoria (PQL); Molly Peacock, author of The Analyst (Biblioasis); and Ronna Bloom, author of The More (Pedlar Press).
Moderated by Dr. Allan Peterkin, Head, Department of Health, Arts and Humanities, U of T
I will be presenting a short talk/performance called “Meetings at the Spontaneous Poetry Booth” at the Creating Space Conference in Hamilton, Ontario
Using reflective writing as a platform, explore what it is to “see” your patient, as a student, a care provider, team member, as a human being. Have a conversation with yourself and each other about the rich nature of patient-centred collaborative work.
Making a request for accommodations or consideration from your professors, teaching assistants or supervisors can be an intimidating process. This workshop will use poetry and writing to explore the areas in which you feel hesitant in asking for what you need.
A workshop for Residents, MD Educators and Health Care Practitioners
In another part of the hospital is a person you know — a patient, a student, a colleague. Or there's a department you’ve never visited on another floor. Or a stranger you’ve seen alone in the halls. During valentine's week, we either cringe, or act loving, or feel privately lonely. This workshop is an opportunity to connect to a person or place through writing, a way to say ‘thinking of you.’ Though you won’t be actually sending the pieces you write, it’s a way to put down a few words of connection to yourselves and each other.
in a special partnership between the League of Canadian Poets and Union Station, Toronto, 6 poets will bring poetry to the general public, writing poems on the spot.
AWAKE AT WORK
Using writing as a platform, explore how simply showing up and attending to your own experience is the starting point for attending to others.
Rhinoceros: Luxury’s Fragile Frontier
An exhibition and symposium in a fragile city
This symposium and exhibition bring together an international group of artists, conservationists, poets, writers, and historians, who will explore the often surprising intersections between these two endangered objects of mass luxury consumption.
(Artwork by Nikki Kovesi)
I will be bringing poetry prescriptions and the poetry booth overseas this fall to join Freedom from Torture’s biennial literary event, FREEDOM: NOT JUST ANOTHER WORD.
Booker Prize-winning author Julian Barnes and Tracy Chevalier, creator of Girl with a Pearl Earring will be performing alongside Women’s Prize for Fiction-winner Kamila Shamsie (Home Fire) and the EBRD Prize-winning novelist and former Freedom from Torture client Burhan Sönmez (Istanbul Istanbul). Survivors of torture from our creative writing group Write to Life will be reading some of their own powerful and moving pieces about 'freedom'.
I’ll be prescribing poems at Sinai Health as part of Healthy Workplace Month.
See details for locations and hours.
On October 10, Jim Nason will launch his new book of poems into the world. Join poets Catherine Graham, David Bateman and myself as we read from our works as a way to open and celebrate the evening. All are welcome.
I'll be reading at The Art Bar Poetry Series in Toronto with Maureen Hynes and John Oughton. An open mic set follows so if you're quietly waiting for a moment to step out and read, come!
The Art Bar is held at the fabulous
Free Times Cafe,
320 College Street,
(College/Spadina)
$5 at the door
8:00PM-10:30PM
At Harbourfront Centre's Festival of Risk and Failure: BRAVE, I will be writing poems on the spot. I was asked: how does this fits with the theme of risk and failure?
You see a woman sitting in a chair with an empty chair beside her and a sign saying, Poet is Present. It says, "I will write you a poem on the subject of your choosing." Will you sit down? Will you ask for what you need? Will I open up and write what comes, not knowing if there'll be a poem, or if you'll like it? These, to me, are acts of bravery and risk. Play, freedom. We do what we're called to do, without knowing the outcome. And then let go.
Ronna Bloom, 2018
Saturday July 21 --> 3-4pm and 5:30-7pm
Sunday July 22 --> 2-3:30pm and 4:30-6pm
Saturday July 28 --> 11pm to 12:30am and then 1-2am.
Narrative Healthcare Atelier Mount Sinai Psychotherapy Institute
Visiting Keynote Speaker: Ronald M. Epstein, MD
Course Directors: Allan Peterkin, MD & Michael Roberts, MD
Canada's Only Advanced Training Seminar in Narrative-based Healthcare for Health Practitioners and Educators across Clinical Disciplines
Explore and reflect critically on your clinical practices, challenges, personal and professional growth as health providers using narrative, storytelling and arts-based learning. This 4 day workshop is designed to help you improve outcomes and to humanize your experiences within complex healthcare contexts. Themes related to relationship-centered care, professionalism, team collaboration and the hidden curriculum will be explored through visual, cinematic and literary texts including fiction, drama and poetry.
This intensive, interactive atelier will apply narrative theory and reflective practice in the contexts of interprofessional patient-centred healthcare, research and education. It aims to: enliven your engagement and collaboration as clinicians and educators from all disciplines; support best practices as teachers, clinicians and lifelong learners; transform the paradigm of your daily professional practice with a renewed commitment to the core values of humanistic healthcare.
I will be joining my amazing colleagues to present a workshop at this conference. "Postcards from the Edge: Addressing Compassion Fatigue in Note Form" will be offered on June 4.
Hi friends, I'll be reading with Sarah Tolmie and Shane Neilson at the wonderful Bookshelf book store in Guelph Ontario.
Bookshelf, 41 Quebec St., Guelph, Ontario
7:30PM
Join editors Fiona Tinwei Lam and Jane Silcott as they launch their new anthology "Love Me True: Writers Reflect on the Ins, Outs, Ups and Downs of Marriage" alongside a long list of Toronto-local contributors! Come to Ben McNally at 366 Bay Street and enjoy yourself in the company of sometimes funny, sometimes harrowing, and always engaging poetry and nonfiction prose.
Readers for this event include: Ayelet Tsabari, Eufemia Fantetti, Maureen Hynes, Ronna Bloom, Samra Zafar, Maureen Scott Harris, Lauren McKeon, Lorri Nielsen Glenn, Donna Besel, Susan Olding, Gina Leola Woolsey as well as Fiona Tinwei Lam and Jane Silcott.
Free admission. Books available for sale & signing. Bring friends!
The Canadian Association for spiritual Care Conference is being held from April 25-28 in Deerhurst, Ontario. Among the robust selection of arts-based workshops presented, I will be offering "Postcards from the Edge: Addressing Compassion Fatigue in Note Form" twice on April 26. Keynote speakers are Dr. Allan Peterkin and Dr. Luis Fornazarri.
Deerhurst Resort, Deerhurst Ontario
I’ll be reading from my new book, The More, at at the long-running Tree Reading Series in Ottawa. Can't wait to be back in Ottawa. Post-skating, pre-tulip season.
For more information contact info@treereadingseries.ca or visit http://treereadingseries.ca/readings
This event has been cancelled due to an emergency in the family of one of the participants. We hope to reschedule when we can be together with poetry.
We are grateful to The League of Canadian Poets and The Canada Council for Arts for their support of this program.
I will be reading from The More in St. John's joining fellow Pedlar Press poet Jack Davis with his new book Fauna.
3-5PM
125 Allandale Road; St. John's, NL
The International Festival of Authors is taking a delegation of writers to The Bookworm Literary Festival and I have the complete honour of being part of this group.
The festival will host journalists, novelists, graphic artists, poets, and playwrights from around the world.
I'll be in three events:
POETS FOR THE PEOPLE with Ifor ap Glyn, Dai Weina, Ronna Bloom
POETS AND POETRY IN EDUCATION with Marcel Gauthier, Scot Slaby, Chen Bo, Ronna Bloom, moderated by Simon Shieh
and in CANADA DIVERSE with fellow Canadians Shari Lapena, Sylvain Neuvel
My aim is to stay awake, and to write a few words each day, sharing them here in the news section or tweeting them via @ronnabloom. This, of course assumes, I'll have internet, data, words etc. Stay tuned.
Join artist Yaara Eshet and myself for a reading and conversation about the process and the work in Hello, Other Moon.
an exhibtiion of illustrations by Yaara Eshet after poems by Ronna Bloom
I'll be prescribing poems at ArtHaus2017 a Gala Fundraiser for Harbourfront.
Saturday November 18, 2017
Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market
11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Trinity–St. Paul’s Centre,
427 Bloor Street West, Toronto
I'll be there from 11:30-1:30ish
Be Good to Yourself, Whoever You Are
Often in work, and in life, energy moves towards projects and people but there’s little left for your own restoration –– especially for those living with chronic pain. In this workshop, through the use of poems and prompts, you will be nudged into writing and reflecting on what sustains you, what you love and what you need. Take this time for yourself as a flicker of possibility of how you might take time for yourself in general.
Note that this workshop does not focus on pain or pain management, rather uses writing as a way to express and support the experiences we have when we're in pain and in life in general.
A special Sinai Health System book launch of The More will take place November 2, 2017.
I’m delighted to be reading at the 38th annual International Festival of Authors on October 22, 2017.
My new poetry collection will be published by Pedlar Press and launched in Toronto on October 12!
