Tag Archives: healing

Recap of 2013 in Poetry

behind drawn curtains it’s so much easier to simply say you are confused. As a matter of belief. A white girl from the suburbs. Becoming aware of privilege on Saturday night. Your grandmother’s age-freckled hands around her favorite teacup Dog tags clicked against his chest our capacity to endure grief— what really counts in aContinue reading “Recap of 2013 in Poetry”

What I Learned from Writing a Killer

Two weeks ago, Robert J. Ray—easily the best teacher I’ve had in any subject—told me to start writing my killer’s backstory in first person. No way, was my knee-jerk response. Hell no. Last week, Jack Remick told me the same thing. Goddamn it, boys. These two men, lifelong writers and teachers now in their seventies,Continue reading “What I Learned from Writing a Killer”

Beautiful Boys

Today at the college, a freshman hunched over the form I handed him, checking off boxes. Male. Under 25. Native language Mongolian. He shouldn’t have had to fill it out again. The writing center where I work had misplaced his file, and the young man was understandably frustrated. But this wasn’t your average freshman sulk.Continue reading “Beautiful Boys”

Encounters with the Conscienceless: Learning from Sociopaths

Sure, sociopaths are unpleasant, even evil, people. They don’t abide by a moral code because they lack empathy. They only understand the emotional damage they inflict in an anthropological sort of way–through observation–because they lack emotions themselves. And their manipulations are primarily motivated by a desire for power and superiority. Psychologists recommend steering clear ofContinue reading “Encounters with the Conscienceless: Learning from Sociopaths”

Beyond Tragedy

In her final lecture on Shakespeare’s tragedies, Clare Kinney posits that the Bard, in his late plays, “writes beyond tragedy.” An aging Shakespeare takes the material of his earlier plays–usurped thrones, suspected infidelity, a banished daughter–and reworks it. Classic tragedy is all about choice and the irrevocable consequences of those choices. Time unfurls in onlyContinue reading “Beyond Tragedy”

The Wound That Heals

What is the value of standing witness? Atrocity and inhumanity and evil–is there a moral imperative to record it? Today I picked up a book in the library titled, The Healing Wound by Gitta Sereny. She writes of Nazi Germany and genocide with first-hand experience, but all I could think of was that title: theContinue reading “The Wound That Heals”