The possibility of a melodious tenderness found within deeper, softer levels of our individual grasping, struggling, imperfect humanity.
Tag: pain
Sarah Karowski – Clumsy
In Sarah Karowski's imaginative prose poem "Clumsy", we are witness to beauty and magic blooming from the grittiness of hurt.
Jack Gilbert – Going There
The mythology of failure, especially in love, is a frequent motif in Jack Gilbert's poetry.
Healing With Our Wounds – Henri Nouwen on Working With Loneliness
Henri Nouwen wrote that when we can be with our own loneliness, we can begin to understand the suffering that underlies all of humanity.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Mother and Poet
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'Mother and Poet' is a lamentation of a mother's grief over losing her only two sons in battle.
The Culture of Healing: Louise Glück on Art’s Restorative Power
Louise Glück's essay condemns current trends of pathological optimism, as well as the tendency towards 'the pornography of scars.'
Chris Alaimo – Lovely Kid
Chris Alaimo's Lovely Kid is an expression of grief for the freedom and innocence through which we explore ourselves in exploring the world in childhood.
Ada Limón – Wife
Ada Limón's poem, Wife, examines the secret pitfalls of marriage from a woman's perspective; poignantly, from the point of view of a newlywed, of someone entering unchartered territory that has been laid out and defined for her by the generations that preceded her.
F*cked Up, but Always Beautiful
Tim Desmond writes about his wife's terminal illness, and his revelation about the way in which his deep love for his wife was manifesting as anxiety, and because of it he was missing their shared moments of beauty.
Staying With the ‘Ouch’ – Tara Brach
Why is self-acceptance so hard and self-criticism so deeply wired in us? Psychologist and teacher of meditation Tara Brach reminds us that self-love is one of the most neglected areas of our psychic landscapes.