Welcome to La Concha. Immerse yourself in our member’s original poetry featuring their experiences of the Camino.
Song lyrics by Robert Bain, set to the tune of the folk-rock song “Teach Your Children,” serve as an audio shadowbox for the gifts that accompanied him on his first Camino in 2018: a shell from friends, Euros to spend, a stone to leave at Cruz de Ferro, and a letter from his wife.
In these song lyrics set to the rap rhythm of “My Shot” from Broadway’s Hamilton, Evan Massaro playfully highlights quintessential details—blisters, snoring, café con leche, tortilla española, cows, sideways rain, and more—that are a shorthand language of the Camino experience, fostering an “if you know, you know” sense of solidarity among fellow pilgrims.
Poet Suzanne Doerge writes of a pilgrim who begins her journey walled-off, distrusting. Injured along the way, she believes her journey would end there, returning home a failure. And then to her surprise, she meets angels who help restore her trust in others and herself.
A toast offered by one pilgrim to his Camino companions at a farewell dinner in Santiago de Compostela.
When her marriage unravels, Katherine January steps out on Camino, tucking into her backpack a small bundle of nylon cord her ex-husband kept stashed around the house. As she walks, she considers the ways she might use that string to solve problems on Camino, just as she, no longer tethered, must now improvise a new life.
In this poem, Rebecca Ring writes about escaping on pilgrimage upon retirement from a career as an elementary classroom teacher, only to find herself surrounded by a group of Spanish students on a field trip day on Camino, and a connection she made in one brief exchange with one of the students.
Bill Artz shares his poem about being inspired to cycle the Camino after surgery had improved his eyesight, and another kind of sight he gained on pilgrimage.
In this poem, Cong Do pays tribute to Portomarín, a town on the Camino Francés, whose residents in the 1960s were forced to abandon the original site of their hometown and rebuild on higher land.
In this poem, Luci Kegley considers how a pilgrim journey fosters a new way of seeing oneself and way of life.
In the natural sights and sounds she observes while walking, poet Suzanne Doerge discovers a benediction for all who walk the pilgrim’s path.