Oh, Broken-Open Heart: A Mother's Day Poetry Gathering for Mourners
This is a digital event. You should receive information in your ticket or from the host about how to join online.
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Mother’s Day can be an especially difficult time for those of us who have lost a mother or child—whether the loss is through death or estrangement. Perhaps you feel isolated, angry, or frustrated. Perhaps you struggle with feeling down on a day heralded as a celebration. Perhaps you are just plain sad. You are not alone.
Join us for this intimate, whole-heart-affirming program, led by James Crews (who lost his mother) and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (who lost her son), which begins with the poets sharing poems and speaking openly about how writing has helped them meet grief. Then they will offer invitations for participants to do their own writing, followed by a conversation about what rises up when we turn toward our loss and write into our heartache.
This is a chance to both mourn and honor. A chance to integrate loss into our lives, weaving it into the larger tapestry of who we are and how we meet the world. It’s a chance to experience how writing can help us feel closer to the ones we have lost. It’s a chance to find nourishment through our connection with others who are also in grief.
Please note that by registering, you acknowledge that your email will be shared between Evermore and Reimagine to keep you informed about upcoming events, resources, and community initiatives.
James Crews is the editor of several bestselling anthologies, including The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, which has over 100,000 copies in print. He has been featured in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The Christian Science Monitor, and on NPR’s Morning Edition. James is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry—The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment—and a book of short essays, Kindness Will Save the World: Stories of Compassion and Connection. James also speaks and leads workshops on kindness, mindfulness, and writing for self-compassion. He lives with his husband on forty rocky acres in the woods of Southern Vermont.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a poet, teacher, speaker, and writing facilitator who co-hosts the Emerging Form podcast on the creative process. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, is on the Ritual app. Her poems have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS NewsHour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, and Carnegie Hall stage. Her most recent poetry collections are All the Honey (Samara Press, 2023) and The Unfolding (Wildhouse Publishing). In January 2024, she became the first poet laureate for Evermore, helping others explore grief, bereavement, wonder, and love through poetry. One-word mantra: Adjust.
About Reimagine
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together in the hopes of healing ourselves and the world. We specifically support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and – at our own pace – actively channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth.
About Evermore
Evermore is dedicated to making the world a more livable place for all bereaved people. For over ten years, Evermore has worked with Congress, The White House, and multiple federal agencies to advance commonsense, human-centered policies for all people in our nation, including securing paid bereavement leave for our U.S. Armed Forces.
