This Tricycle article discusses some of the contradictions inherent in a typical first-world lifestyle.
http://www.tricycle.com/special-section/john-mcclellan
This Tricycle article discusses some of the contradictions inherent in a typical first-world lifestyle.
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By the time you're in your third "career," you have to expect that people will be making wry comments.
But actually, I've always been a writer. I just haven't published, much. and much of my writing would be hard to see. I wrote my first poem in junior high, and it was published in the school paper. I still have it, somewhere, and will burden you with it when I find it. just to show. as to stories, though, I've composed them for longer... in my mind. when I was 7, I got pneumonia, going out in a fishing expedition with my father and sitting in the brow. My mother came in one day to apologize for leaving me alone so long, and I told her not to worry - I amused myself by telling myself stories. I wish now she had asked me to tell them to her! I would like to see them… This is the chestnut oak to the south of my house. You may see it often in my writings, as I see it often in my days. In this shot, it stands tall and strong, but also reaching out to communicate. And unnoticed in this photo but crucial are the roots that sustain it and the interior channels through which nourishment flows.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking of growth, development, as accumulation: more knowledge, more techniques, rather than being, circulating, exchanging. The tree reminds me. Planted on a huge boulder, the tree grows as it does in response to its environment and available resources. It keeps being what it is, keeps drawing in sustenance , spreading its leaves, and sending out oxygen for the benefit of those of us who breathe. I too depend on my surroundings: food, air, impressions. These pass through me and maintain my life and well-being. And sometimes the nourishment abides, fundamentally changes who I am, what I am capable of. What is that invisible process that forms new interior organizations capable of sustaining further levels of search? |
AuthorMary Newell, Ph. D. lives in the lower Hudson Valley, where she cohabitates empathically with the bordering wildlife. She has taught literature and writing at the college level, most recently at West Point, and also taught writing in adult school venues. Her poems have been published in Spoon River Poetry Review, Hopper Literary Magazine, Earth’s Daughters, Chronogram, Written River, About Place, and other journals and anthologies. She has also published essays and reviews. Mary was the First Place winner in the Poetry category of the Peter K. Hixson Memorial Award (2016). She received a doctorate from Fordham University in American Literature and the Environment following MAs from Columbia University and Teachers College and a BA from UC Berkeley. Archives
February 2015
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