What the World Needs Now Is Poetry

Poet Mary Oliver has said, “Poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” As our world lurches from one chaotic event, one crisis to another, we can steady ourselves with the beauty and wisdom of poems. Join author and former PBS-TV journalist Judith Valente and former Illinois Circuit Court Judge Charles Reynard, editors of the award-winning anthology Twenty Poems to Nourish Your Soul, as they explore how poems can heal us, open us to transcendent moments in ordinary existence, and become lifelong “soul friends.”

This event is co-sponsored with the Chicago Chapter of the International Thomas Merton Society.