The Lives We Almost Lived: A Poetry Gathering on Choice, Chance, and Possibility
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Every life contains other lives.
The city we almost moved to.
The work we once imagined doing.
The place we never expected to call home.
The friendship that began by accident.
The door we opened without knowing where it would lead.
Some possibilities disappear quietly. Others arrive without invitation and change the course of everything.
A chance conversation.
A missed train.
An unexpected yes.
A sudden departure.
Someone entering our lives at precisely the right moment.
Our lives are shaped not only by the choices we make, but by chance.
By timing.
By circumstance.
By the paths we choose and those that close before us.
By encounters we could never have planned.
Years later, we sometimes look back and wonder how differently everything might have unfolded.
Perhaps every life is accompanied by other possible lives.
Selves we once imagined.
Paths we chose and paths we left behind.
Possibilities we lost—and possibilities we never knew to hope for.
The Lives We Almost Lived is a gathering devoted to choice, chance, possibility, and the roads not taken.
Together, we will explore the curious relationship between the life we once imagined, the lives that might have been, and the surprising life that somehow became our own.
Across traditions, poets and writers have wondered about these turns of fate and possibility. C.P. Cavafy wrote of journeys and the lives formed along the way. Fernando Pessoa inhabited multiple selves and imagined identities. Elizabeth Bishop found entire histories inside departures and distant places. Wisława Szymborska returned again and again to chance—the astonishing accidents through which one life becomes ours rather than another. Agha Shahid Ali wrote across memory, migration, exile, and return.
This gathering asks:
How have unexpected choices and chance encounters shaped the lives we are living?
What possibilities opened when other paths did not unfold as we imagined?
What parts of our earlier dreams and imagined selves still travel with us?
How might the roads not taken help us see the road we are on differently?
We will read poems about choices and coincidences, missed encounters and unexpected arrivals, abandoned dreams and surprising beginnings, alternate selves, migration, love, friendship, and the mysterious turns through which a life acquires its shape.
You are welcome to bring:
A poem about a choice, chance encounter, or turning point.
A piece about a road taken—or not taken.
A poem about a place you almost called home or someone who might have changed your life.
A piece about an abandoned dream, an earlier self, or a future once imagined.
An original work about the person you might have become.
We invite poetry from all languages and traditions.
Together, we will read, translate, reflect, and listen—allowing different possibilities and different lives to meet in the same room.
As always with Kaavya Connections, the gathering may wander beyond the theme. We follow where the poems, memories, and conversations lead.
Join us for an afternoon not about regret, but about possibility—the choices and accidents that shape us, the paths that disappeared behind us, and the mysterious life that somehow became our own.
Bring a friend, a poem, an unlived possibility—or simply come to listen.
Above all, bring the roads you have traveled and the ones you still sometimes wonder about.
Please find more about us here —
Kaavya Connections Website:
https://www.kaavyaconnections.com/
Please also join the mailing list for upcoming gatherings and events:
https://www.kaavyaconnections.com/mailing-list/
If you would like to volunteer to help organize future gatherings and performances, please email:
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Kaavya Connections
The city we almost moved to.
The work we once imagined doing.
The place we never expected to call home.
The friendship that began by accident.
The door we opened without knowing where it would lead.
Some possibilities disappear quietly. Others arrive without invitation and change the course of everything.
A chance conversation.
A missed train.
An unexpected yes.
A sudden departure.
Someone entering our lives at precisely the right moment.
Our lives are shaped not only by the choices we make, but by chance.
By timing.
By circumstance.
By the paths we choose and those that close before us.
By encounters we could never have planned.
Years later, we sometimes look back and wonder how differently everything might have unfolded.
Perhaps every life is accompanied by other possible lives.
Selves we once imagined.
Paths we chose and paths we left behind.
Possibilities we lost—and possibilities we never knew to hope for.
The Lives We Almost Lived is a gathering devoted to choice, chance, possibility, and the roads not taken.
Together, we will explore the curious relationship between the life we once imagined, the lives that might have been, and the surprising life that somehow became our own.
Across traditions, poets and writers have wondered about these turns of fate and possibility. C.P. Cavafy wrote of journeys and the lives formed along the way. Fernando Pessoa inhabited multiple selves and imagined identities. Elizabeth Bishop found entire histories inside departures and distant places. Wisława Szymborska returned again and again to chance—the astonishing accidents through which one life becomes ours rather than another. Agha Shahid Ali wrote across memory, migration, exile, and return.
This gathering asks:
How have unexpected choices and chance encounters shaped the lives we are living?
What possibilities opened when other paths did not unfold as we imagined?
What parts of our earlier dreams and imagined selves still travel with us?
How might the roads not taken help us see the road we are on differently?
We will read poems about choices and coincidences, missed encounters and unexpected arrivals, abandoned dreams and surprising beginnings, alternate selves, migration, love, friendship, and the mysterious turns through which a life acquires its shape.
You are welcome to bring:
A poem about a choice, chance encounter, or turning point.
A piece about a road taken—or not taken.
A poem about a place you almost called home or someone who might have changed your life.
A piece about an abandoned dream, an earlier self, or a future once imagined.
An original work about the person you might have become.
We invite poetry from all languages and traditions.
Together, we will read, translate, reflect, and listen—allowing different possibilities and different lives to meet in the same room.
As always with Kaavya Connections, the gathering may wander beyond the theme. We follow where the poems, memories, and conversations lead.
Join us for an afternoon not about regret, but about possibility—the choices and accidents that shape us, the paths that disappeared behind us, and the mysterious life that somehow became our own.
Bring a friend, a poem, an unlived possibility—or simply come to listen.
Above all, bring the roads you have traveled and the ones you still sometimes wonder about.
Please find more about us here —
Kaavya Connections Website:
https://www.kaavyaconnections.com/
Please also join the mailing list for upcoming gatherings and events:
https://www.kaavyaconnections.com/mailing-list/
If you would like to volunteer to help organize future gatherings and performances, please email:
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Kaavya Connections
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Where is it happening?
1250 Addison St Ste 111, Berkeley, CA 94702, United States
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherKaavya Connections: World Poetry, Literature & Music
