As much as there’s plentiful opportunity to be inspired in darling NYC, often quiet times to write are harder to come by. We’re launching this series on First Mondays as a monthly reminder to take some time out for the poet in you.
Carve out some you-time and head down to this month’s PTW spot & give this Prompt a free write.

Directions: Take the B/D/F/M or 7 to Bryant Park Subway Station. Enter the Public Library via 5th Ave and take either staircase from the gorgeous stone lobby, up two flights to the top floor, a very mahogany landing spot with frescoes upon the ceilings and two rooms on either side. The Reading Room has a security guard who you tell the top-secret code, “I’m just here to study” to be let through. Find a seat beneath the clouds.

Your Prompt

The entrance to the Rose Main Reading Room bears an Olde English version of this inscription:
A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose, to a life beyond life.

Let this quote guide a free write for 25 minutes. What would an examination of your own blood yield, what gives it life? What runs through it? Genetically, emotionally, spiritually.

When that blood stops flowing, what lives on about you? What treasures? What is there to embalm?

Hashtag #PSNYPlacestoWrite when you visit our PTW Location 1. Feel free to share what you write, we’ll repost it @poetrysocietyofny.

Series by F.M Papaz

Directions to The Rose Main Reading & a Prompt for this month’s PSNY ‘Places to Write.’

F.M Papaz is a Greek-Australian poet living in Brooklyn, New York. She believes that there is space at the literary table for everyone and is excitedly setting up your cutlery. Her poems have appeared in Mantissa Poetry Review, Literary Revelation’s Poetry Anthology ‘Hidden in Childhood’ and The Victorian Writer. In 2023, she joined Tabula Rasa Review as an Editorial Assistant. Connect @fmpapaz or fmpapaz.com/ings to find her monthly newsletter about living a creative life.