Retreat starts Thursday with Dinner at 5:30 and ends Sunday morning
To Everything There Is a Season: A Poetry Retreat Informed by Ecclesiastes
For this contemplative poetry retreat, we’ll use Ecclesiastes 3:1–8—as well as the Pete Seeger folk song inspired by it—to address, question, and respond to timely topics. We’ll “Turn! Turn! Turn!” from odes to laments, love poems to war poems, aubades to elegies, and meditations to protests. Time permitting, we’ll experiment with the humorous, the lyrical, the narrative, and lesser known poetic forms such as the abecedarian. Following Ecclesiastes, we find “To everything there is a season": This is your time to write, rest, and interact.
You should arrive by Thursday evening at 5:00 pm ready to engage, experiment, write, and laugh. During morning and (shorter) evening workshops, we’ll draft, revise, and discuss poems in a supportive community. We’ll reserve afternoons for rest, contemplation, writing, and exploring the beautiful Bethany Retreat Center grounds. You will leave Sunday morning by 11:00 am with new ideas and strategies for future poems.
Poetry Moment host for WPSU-FM, assistant editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, and Professor Emerita of English and creative writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 17 collections of poetry—including How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? Spelling Mnemonics and Grammar Tricks (Kelsay Books), Seeing Things (Wildhouse), and Hover Here (Broadstone, forthcoming), as well as the ekphrastic collaborations Small Earthly Space; Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (both with Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (with daughter Anna Lee Hafer www.hafer.work, a 2023 Dragonfly Book Award in photography/fine arts and American Fiction Winner Award in poetry) and others. Maddox also has published a story collection, 4 children’s books, and the anthologies Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and the forthcoming Keystone Poetry (co-editor with Jerry Wemple, PSU Press). This is her 4th year teaching poetry retreats for the Bethany Retreat Center. For more information, see
3:00-5:00 pm: arrival/registration
5:30 pm: dinner
7:00-8:30 pm: evening gathering and initial workshop at house conference room
8:30 am: breakfast and conversation
9:15-noon: morning discussion, exercises, and workshop at house conference room
12:30 pm: lunch and conversation
1:30-5:30 pm: free time for writing, contemplation, rest, and/or exploring the grounds
Optional centering prayer led by Sr. Ruth Ann
5:30 pm: dinner
7:00-8:00 pm: evening writing exercises and workshop at house conference room
8:30 am: breakfast and conversation
9:15-noon: morning discussion, exercises, and workshop at house conference room
12:30 pm: lunch and conversation
1:30-5:30 pm: free time for writing, contemplation, rest, and/or exploring the grounds
Optional centering prayer led by Sr. Ruth Ann
5:30 pm: dinner
7:00-8:00 pm: class poetry reading around the campfire
8:30 am: breakfast and conversation
10:30 am: optional Mass St. Agnes, Morrisdale. Those wishing to participate would need to leave by 10 am.
11:00 am: clean up and departure.