Passing the Threshold
A Poetry Retreat in the Donegal Mountains
Last weekend I went somewhere new.
The week before I had been set loose googling poetry retreats, classes and courses. My girlfriend wanted to treat me to one for my birthday and I was typing and scrolling franticly, determined to find the perfect one in the perfect place with the perfect teacher. Sooner than expected, as though we were looking for each other, I found it.
Solas Poetry Retreat was a weekend of poetry, nature and connection and it was everything I needed. On Thursday evening my girlfriend drove me through the Donegal Mountains, a place so beautiful we could do nothing but laugh, slightly delirious. A little high on the reminder, the proof, that we are so small and so real and so together, the reminder that even so close to home there is a beauty and a mightiness and a world, world, world - waiting, waiting, waiting.
After a watercolour moment of laughing ourselves silly, we arrived at The Song House. The Song House, or Teach na nAmhrán, used be known as the Poets’ House, and has a rich and delicious literary history. Five minutes after arriving I cheerily told the lovely host that I felt like I’d been there before, not in a spooky way exactly, but in a comfortable, familiar way. He nodded, he got it.
As everyone trickled in we prepared for dinner and got to know each other. We ate together, we chatted, we feigned a comfort we would feel for real so much sooner than we knew.
Then the poetry began. Our facilitator for the weekend was Annemarie Nà Churreáin and she was a wonder. So kind, so wise, so generous with her time, thoughts and knowledge. That night we thought and talked and wrote about all we’d been forbidden to do or be. I wrote about anger, maybe I’ll post the draft here at some point. We shared our poems, written in a flurry of nerves over fifteen minutes and that was that, we were a group, a team.
The next day we found ourselves amongst trees. We did a ceremony together, made and passed a threshold, thanked and honoured the earth then wandered off one by one to connect with something else. I tried to take notes, we’d been told that was important, take notes, take notes, take notes. But I just sat. Back to a tree. Eyes on the water. Feeling the wind. I sat and I cried a little for no real reason other than I felt like it might be nice. It was. I could not, so did not, take a single note. For the first time ever I could not put pen to paper, and I was ok with that. I spent time with the water and the trees and everything I could hear moving around me. Then I walked a little, aimless and directionless and worried about nothing at all. I found a tree. It was in the middle of the path, apart from all the others, it was wrapped in vines but had grown so tall. It screamed defiance. I loved it. I have not stopped thinking about that tree. It felt wrong to take my phone from my bag and into these moments, but I’m glad I did. I’m glad I have proof of that tree, proof of that moment.
We ate lunch together back at the house then we got to work. We spent a nourishing afternoon reading together, giving feedback and suggestions and digging into our reserves for each other, offering up all we had. Trusting and being trusted was a gorgeous thing. Getting to launch right into poetry and talk and talk and think and think and share and share. Perfect.
Then the next day we did it again, eight hours this time, eight poems this time. I came prepared after spending the morning meditating and journalling outside, taking deep gulps of mountain air and berry tea.
My poem was the second last to be workshopped and I was, admittedly, terrified. I am used to writing a novel-in-verse, getting some notes, applying them and sending it off into the world. I have never workshopped so intently in-person and definitely never spent an hour workshopping one single poem with a group. It was, of course, after all my terror, a very beautiful thing. It was safe and comfortable and lovely and I got to share a poem I’d written about Emily Dickinson. I love writing about Emily Dickinson and could talk about her forever. And I kind of did. Once I started it was hard to stop and I went on a bit. But it led to some lovely conversations so I won’t give out to myself too much.
That night brought fire, singing songs as gaeilge and reciting Mary Oliver, bundled up and exhausted in the warmest way. It rained just the tiniest bit and the drops felt sent to remind me that this was real, that I was real and that this experience was real. I appreciated the reminder.
On our final morning I couldn’t help but get up early to write, the poem was dancing in my head and I had to work on it, had to make the most of the last few hours in that magical place. I woke early, tried to commit the view from my window to memory, gave up and took a picture instead, then I wrote. I felt so connected to myself and my creativity and it felt glorious to sit in that feeling, to hold that connection and work with it.
We read some more poems, we talked some more, we thanked each other, and we said goodbye.
And I went home. Happy. Fulfilled. Ready to write poem after poem after poem.
I’ll be honest, the nerves smacked me across the face the second I booked this retreat. I was excited, sure, but I was scared. Now that it’s done and dusted and gone, I miss it. I would go back in a heartbeat to that room in that house looking at that mountain with those people. But I’m not sad it's over, I’m so full of motivation and ideas and confidence, so ready to take all I learned and write and write and write.
If you get a similar opportunity, to step outside of your comfort zone, to enrich your creativity, to meet good people and cool trees, to feel inside you a spark of defiance meet a flicker of warmth, or whatever it is you need to keep you going, take it. Take the opportiunity, especially if it comes with mountain air.
Meg
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