This has been one of the most blessed weeks I’ve spent in Orvieto thus far.

New class began on Monday, which meant delving into the world of Ekphrastic poetry for me! Ekphrasis is the response of art to art, so in my class we spend time responding to works of art with poetry. I was pretty intimidated by this concept because even though I’m studying English Literature, I have not written much of what I would consider to be legitimate poetry. But my professor, Dr. Marilyn McEntyre (formerly of Westmont College, now teaching at UC Davis, I believe) is brilliant, gracious and so helpful. She has exposed us to some beautiful poems and encourages us to begin writing by just putting observations and words to paper and playing around with them. She has taken the weight off of putting “deep meaning” into poems through recognizing that it will come naturally and will look different for each reader and writer. Class lasts from 9 am until noon and we spend the time talking about art and poetry and going through group and individual writing practices. Afternoons are spent various ways: Italian class, film viewings, walks around the town, and going through various poetry-writing exercises. The end project of my course is a 12-poem portfolio, and how I arrive there is more open-ended, and I hope the more open freedom proves to be beneficial to my creativity! I really am enjoying every moment of this class.

This weekend was an extremely relaxing one. It was full of playing soccer, laying in the sun, going for walks/runs, writing poetry and eating gelato. On Friday night six of us joined in on an Italian volleyball league. There were three teams including ours, so we played each other on a rotating basis. I was a little intimidated at first out and we didn’t win any of our games, but it turns out we can really hold our own against the Italians! They seemed to enjoy playing with us and given a little more practice, I think we can beat them this week!

This morning was the Palm Sunday service at church. We joined with another church in the area and began the morning outside with palms. The priests were dressed in their red robes today and began to do some of the liturgy of the service in the piazza outside our church and then processed into the church. I have been practicing to sing with the church’s choir on Easter, but this morning we (unexpectedly) joined the choir for Palm Sunday. Because there were two congregations present the church was more filled than I have ever seen it—every chair and standing space filled. There was also another choir leader and some of his singers/instrumentalists; thankfully, they lead about half of the worship throughout the service so there was less pressure on us! I was pleasantly surprised to find that if I followed the program for the service I could actually follow the scripture readings and liturgy. The priests read the entirety of scripture from the Triumphal entrance all the way until when Christ was buried. As the service went on there were times for congregational response (some of which I could follow, others I could not!) When it came to the choir’s time to sing, the director would whisper the page number in our songbook and we’d quickly flip to the page so we could follow (not as sophisticated of a process as you’d imagine). Turns out, we didn’t actually sing any songs I had practiced before, but it worked out okay! It was such a blessing to be part of such a larger service and to have a greater grasp on what was happening throughout the morning. Though I don’t understand most of the language, attending church each week helps me to become familiar with and appreciate the liturgy and is an eye-opening cultural experience (especially attending choir practices!). In the last couple of weeks, our program has begun meeting together on Sunday nights to read some scripture passages, reflect and worship together (in English!); it’s the perfect preparation for a new week.

The rest of today will be filled with studying…our first Italian exam is tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll see how that goes! Feel free to email me or send me snail mail anytime!

Alyssa Provencher

Gordon College

46 Santo Stefano

Orvieto, TR

Italy 05018

We hiked down the mountain and up to a bed & breakfast that used to be a monastery. This is the view of Orvieto from our picnic spot.

Meaghan (one of my roommates), Audrey & I
a lovely Italian lunch, ingredients bought fresh at the market that morning!