Diane Morrow

What About Safeguards?

Posted by Diane Morrow on February 21, 2016 in Invitation

There are three pieces here that may be of particular interest if you’re considering writing about difficult experiences. The first is advice about what to do if writing becomes too painful. The second is a kind of preventive remedy and has to do with setting up lifelines. In the end perhaps what’s most important to remember is that you’re the one in charge—you’re the one who decides what you do and do not write about—you’re the one who decides how to pace yourself—and you’re the one who decides when it’s time to rest. Which brings me to a third piece—which has to do with rest. The photo is from the print, White Clematis, by Deborah Schenck...

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

Posted by Diane Morrow on September 27, 2015 in Blog, Healing Books, Perspective

In When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, tells this story—a story that came to mind as I was thinking about “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop. It’s another take on this idea of practicing loss by looking at it differently. By considering that what looks and feels like loss might be something other than disaster. Pema Chodron writes: I read somewhere about a family who had only one son. They were very poor. This son was extremely precious to them, and the only thing that mattered to the family was that he bring them some financial support and prestige. Then he was thrown from a horse and crippled. It seemed like the end of their lives. Two weeks after that, the army came into the village and took away all the healthy strong men to fight in the war, and this young man was allowed to stay behind and take care of his family. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know. I don’t think this means that we don’t grieve. Not that. Sorrow is sorrow. But I think it means holding with at least some tiny part of our mind the possibility that the way things seem might not be the full story. There might be a larger story that we can’t yet see. And it seems like writing can be a way to consider and imagine this larger story. What if the way things seem is not the way things really...

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Posted by Diane Morrow on September 6, 2015 in Healing Grief, Healing Poetry, Writing and Healing Prompts

There’s something about this poem, “One Art.” A haunting kind of repetition. It’s a poem about loss and trying to wrap one’s mind around it—trying to master it. It’s about considering loss as an art, which suggests that somehow the loss can be transformed. Can become something of value? Something beautiful? And how exactly? The poem begins with a loss as ordinary as the loss of keys and then begins to expand outward from there—the loss of hours, cities, rivers, an entire continent. It’s a poem, perhaps, best heard because the sound of the poem is so important to its meaning. A reading of the poem begins at 1:50 here: I appreciate this reading. I appreciate the shift and sigh in the reader’s voice when she reads about the loss of the mother’s watch–and how her voice sustains that shift through the remainder of the poem. If you listen to the full 6-minute video, you’ll learn that Elizabeth Bishop lost both her parents before the age of five. Knowing an author’s story doesn’t always change the experience of a poem, but for me, this piece of history does seem crucial. The tone of the poem seems important. The seriousness and the lack of seriousness. Both. It seems just the kind of poem that could inspire writing. What has been lost? One could make a list. It could begin with keys and socks. And it could go on from there. And the list could lead to the question: Does the practice of loss carry us anywhere? Does the practice of loss make it become any more bearable? Any less of a disaster? And what might the practice of loss look like? I keep thinking that this poem is titled “The Art of Losing,” but it’s actually called “One Art” which for me is a kind of reminder that she’s talking about one art among many. A full text of the poem can be found at Poetry Foundation Image is of Paul Cezanne’s “Study of An Apple” from...

Over the Wall of Self: A Found Poem by David Foster Wallace

Posted by Diane Morrow on August 16, 2015 in Blog, Fiction, Healing Poetry

After writing about This is Water by David Foster Wallace a couple weeks ago, I ended up listening to the beginning of a documentary, Endnotes, done by BBC. The opening, in Wallace’s own words, struck me as a kind of poem which I’m including here. These are words that could serve as inspiration for anyone who writes and reads— There’s something magical for me about literature and fiction and I think it can do things not only that pop culture can’t do, but that are urgent now. One is that by creating a character in a piece of fiction you can allow a reader to leap over the wall of self and to imagine himself being not just somewhere else but someone else. In a way that television and movies that no other form can do because people I think are essentially lonely and alone and frightened of being alone. I love his sense of urgency here. And his honesty—his vulnerability. And this image of leaping over the wall of self. A reason to read–and to write. His comments also dovetail well with research that has demonstrated a link between reading literary fiction and developing empathy and emotional intelligence. The BBC documentary, Endnotes is linked at YouTube...

This is Water by David Foster Wallace

Posted by Diane Morrow on July 26, 2015 in Blog, Perspective, Writing and Healing Prompts

I’m thinking of this speech by David Foster Wallace because I’m reading his book, Infinite Jest, this summer, and will be showing the speech again this fall to my students, and because the speech connects so well to the poem by Alison Luterman that I wrote about back in April—Because Even the Word Obstacle Is an Obstacle. The whole speech is well worth listening to and I’m embedding it here. I’m also excerpting a short piece from his speech that connects especially well to the poem. There are so many pieces I could excerpt. But, for now, this one, in which he muses on how a person might consider navigating the ordinary experience of going to the grocery store differently: But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down. How well that connects to Alison Luterman’s last stanza: So your moment of impatience must bow in service to a larger story, because if something is in your way it is going your way, the way of all beings; towards darkness, towards light. I feel like there’s a writing idea in here somewhere. Catching a moment of impatience and spinning it. Catching a moment when the water is not as smooth as we would like. And then imagining the story forward. What if the woman in the grocery store is not who I think she is? What if appearances are entirely deceptive? What if the boy in the next lane learning to hold his breath is practicing to save his life? Or—who knows?—what if he’s practicing to save mine? What if we could begin by imagining just one thing that is not what it appears to be? And then writing about that. See also Alison Luterman’s poem: Because Even the Word Obstacle is an...

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