Healing Books

A large number of books could be offered here as potentially healing. I’ve chosen a handful–well, a rather large boxful–that resonate especially well with writing and healing.

The list begins with books of general interest. Following that, books are listed according to the month of One Year of Writing and Healing with which they best fit. Underlined titles link to a brief piece in which I’ve written about the book–or in which I’ve written about a topic that springs from the book.

Books of General Interest

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Writing Without Teachers by Peter Elbow

Opening Up by James Pennebaker

The Writing Cure by Stephen Lepore

Month One: Creating a Healing Place

Fern Garden by Deborah Schenck

Soul Garden by Donald Norfolk

Writer’s Retreat Kit by Judy Reeves

Noah’s Garden by Sara Stein

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Month Two: Gathering Resources

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Frederick by Leo Lionni

Still Life with Chickens by Catherine Goldhammer

Month Three: Finding a Healing Language and Healing Images

Healing Circle An anthology edited by Patricia Foster and Mary Swander

Poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge

Speak the Language of Healing by Susan Kuner, Carol Matzkin Orsborn, Linda Quigley, and Karen Leigh Stroup

Month Four: Writing through and with Grief

Broken Vessels by Andre Dubus

A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

Keeping Katherine by Susan Zimmermann

Writing to Heal the Soul: Transforming Grief and Loss by Writing by Susan Zimmermann

Month Five: Discovering Form(s)

A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carver and Tess Gallagher

What You’ve Been Missing by Janet Desaulniers

Wishes, Lies and Dreams by Kenneth Koch

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

Month Six: Figuring Out the Good Part

I Had Brain Surgery, What’s Your Excuse by Suzy Becker

Staying Alive, a poetry anthology edited by Neil Astley

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

Month Seven: A Different Perspective: Thirteen (or More) Ways of Looking

The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

Writing with Power by Peter Elbow

Month Eight: Writing and Healing as a Quest

The Wounded Storyteller by Arthur Frank

Swimming to Anarctica by Lynne Cox

The Boy Who Drew Cats by Margaret Hodges

Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Estes

Month Nine: Two Steps Forward and One Step Back: Writing in the Face of Resistance

Long Quiet Highway by Natalie Goldberg

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness by Karen Armstrong

A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield

The Resilient Writer by Catherine Wald

Month Ten: Healing Conversation

Altars in the Street by Melody Chavis

The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones

Jamesland by Michelle Huneven

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

When Words Heal: Writing Through Cancer by Sharon Bray

Month Eleven: Deep Revision and Creation

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock

Month Twelve: Looking Ahead: Writing About Dreams and Goals

Stronger than Dirt by Kim Schaye and Chris Losee

Through Corridors of Light: Poems of Consolation during Illness

Posted by Diane Morrow on March 27, 2012 in Blog, Healing Books, Healing Corridor, Healing Poetry, Resources

I have just become aware of a new poetry anthology published in the UK for people who are dealing with illness. The anthology is edited by John Andrew Denny, who writes, at his website: I was ill for more than twenty years with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. For most of that time I was bedbound, in pain and at times deeply depressed, and I was helped to an extraordinary degree by reading and meditating on poetry that addressed my own thoughts and feelings about my illness. In an email conversation, he also writes about a connection between reading poetry and writing, something I find of particular interest: The initial reason I compiled Through Corridors of Light was that when I was first ill (in 1991) I was so weak that anything longer than a short(ish) poem was beyond my concentration. Now that I am quite a lot stronger, I still find writing very slow, and creative writing is unsatisfying for me unless I can find some relevant model to stimulate my mind – so both of these impulses were what inspired my anthology. What makes it so therapeutic is that in giving voice to one’s hopes, fears, worries, or desires, the poems not only trigger other thoughts and feelings but also show how poems on such themes can be successfully constructed. What makes it so therapeutic is that in giving voice to one’s hopes, fears, worries, or desires, the poems not only trigger other thoughts and feelings but also show how poems on such themes can be successfully constructed. I love this idea–the connection between reading a poem and beginning to write. I think this speaks to what is possible. We read and then we write, and in doing so a healing conversation extends and continues and spreads like a network of healing corridors. I’m waiting for my copy to arrive in the mail. Meanwhile, I can direct you to his beautiful website which contains a detailed table of contents, a visitor page, and ordering information. He’s donating all profits from his book to ME Research UK, a charity in the UK doing research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. __________________________________________ See: Through Corridors of Light I Must Go, I Will Go, another piece on John Andrew Denny’s...

The Open Road by Pico Iyer

Posted by Diane Morrow on March 7, 2012 in Blog, Healing Books, Healing Poetry

I am rereading The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Pico Iyer, a journalist and novelist, has known the Dalai Lama for decades, first meeting him with his father when he was an adolescent. In this impressionistic biography he peels back layers of the Dalai Lama to present him in nine different facets. The first chapter—the first facet—is The Conundrum. In it I found this, a kind of poem: We are not talking about God We are not talking about Nirvana We are only talking about how to become a more compassionate human being. At times he pulls out a piece of tissue and polishes his glasses A metaphor He has taken off his watch with its sturdy stainless-steel band. Know exactly how much time you have he might be saying and use that time for some good. ______________________________ More about The Open Road: A televised conversation with Pico Iyer at Foratv A book review at the New York Times The book at...

The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein

Posted by Diane Morrow on February 14, 2012 in Blog, Guest House, Healing Books

It’s not quite a poem. Shel Silverstein’s book is more like a fable, but with shapes instead of tortoises or rabbits. Perhaps you’ve read it at one time or another. For some reason I’ve missed it all these years and just recently was delighted to come across it. In the animated version I’ve embedded here, there’s this lovely piano music and it adds to the sense of whimsy and lightness as you watch it unfold—the journey of the missing piece. Sometimes fables can be heavy but this one doesn’t feel heavy to me. It has a wonderful lightness and humor and makes me want to read more of Silverstein than I already have. So much of this story I love—he gets the small moments just right—but I suppose my favorite moment is that moment right smack in the middle when the story shifts. I read recently that John Gardner once said there are only two kinds of stories: a person goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. At the midpoint of Silverstein’s story—minute 3:09 in this video—“one came along who looked different.” It’s like the perfect meeting of both kinds of stories: a person goes on a journey and then a stranger comes along. At this point the entire story begins to shift. Something new begins to happen . . . I think this has something to do with the guest house–we welcome something or someone new–and then something new happens. Maybe . . . I hope you enjoy! _____________________________________________________ See also: Shel Silverstein’s site...

Attention Must Be Paid, Part 2

Posted by Diane Morrow on February 1, 2012 in Blog, Healing Books

So this coincidence occurred. The very same day I was reading about attention, rereading what Sharon Begley says about attention in Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, I also happened to be preparing to teach Death of a Salesman to my seniors. I looked for an excerpt online and downloaded it so we could read it as a preview to reading the entire play. The excerpt is a brief 4 pages. In it I was surprised to come across this, a speech by Willy Loman’s wife, Linda: I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person. Here then is the same line Sharon Begley uses as a heading to introduce the notion of attention in her book: attention must be paid. You may already be quite familiar with the play. In it Willy Loman, played by Dustin Hoffman in one of the film versions, is a salesman who has tried to live his version of the American Dream—be well liked, become successful through being well-liked, do whatever it takes to become well liked, and, perhaps most important of all, have well-liked and successful sons. It isn’t working out so well for him. He’s past mid-life and things are falling apart. He’s getting increasingly confused. He’s living in the past, talking to ghosts. In this context, the lines his wife says are so powerful: He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. What struck me in particular about this is the way it got me thinking of what it is we direct our attention to. We’re awash in sensory stimuli—billions of neurons potentially firing—and amidst this sea we’re always choosing where to direct our attention. I’d been thinking of attention as important in directing us toward what’s valuable in our environment—the jewels among the debris—what we want to hang on to and remember and learn. What I’d missed—and what this excerpt reminded me to consider—is the way we also have to direct our attention toward what is painful—toward those who are suffering—and toward those who perhaps have something to teach us in their suffering. The closer I look at Arthur Miller’s play the more I see it as brilliant. Willy Loman was trying to live by a myth he believed in—and the myth is failing him. He’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. Another thing I did with my seniors before starting the play was to ask, Should literature be studied in high school? Why or why not? Out of twelve or so small groups that gave mini-presentations, eleven were in favor of it. (The twelfth group wanted to deal more with song lyrics and films, which could be, depending on your definition, a kind of literature.) A thread running through nearly all of their presentations was the way that reading has the...

Everything, a Found Poem

Posted by Diane Morrow on December 20, 2011 in Blog, Healing Books, Healing Poetry

Often I am asked, Who taught me to write? Everything All the blank times, the daydreaming, the boredom, the American legacy of loneliness and alienation, the sky,the desk, a pen, the pavement, small towns I’ve driven through. Writing became the tool I used To digest my life Not because everything was hunky-dory But because we can use everything we are. We have no choice. Our job is to wake up to everything. ____________________________________ from Natalie Goldberg’s Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America (p. 19, Bantam trade paperback) You can read more about Long Quiet Highway at my other site here. And here. Photo from FlickRiver...

Odysseus in America: A Book for Healing and Writing

Posted by Diane Morrow on November 1, 2011 in Blog, Healing Books

Let me begin with a story about Bear. Bear served one tour in Vietnam as a sergeant in the infantry. During that single tour he was ordered to slit the throat of a wounded enemy soldier. He followed orders. He saw close friends die, including one particularly horrific incident when his platoon, after a night ambush, discovered two headless bodies of their own men; a ways out they came upon the two heads set up on stakes. His platoon went berserk after the incident, cutting off the heads of enemy soldiers, collecting ears. They became known as the headhunters. Back home, a full thirty years out from military discharge, Bear is afraid he’s “losing it”. Bear sleeps on the couch, separate from his wife, with a knife under his pillow. He “walks the perimeter” of his land at night, looking for snipers and ambushes. His job at the post office is in jeopardy because of numerous incidents of violence. He attacks people, sometimes without any provocation. More than once, he’s had to leave work in order to keep himself from killing someone. Jonathan Shay, author of Odysseus in America, looks at this violent man and sees a deep and resonant connection with the Greek hero, Odysseus. I teach high school English now. When I was first starting out, two years ago, I found myself looking for ways to take classic works that are taught in high school—works like The Iliad and The Odyssey and Oedipus Rex—and make them relevant for fifteen and sixteen-year-olds. My search yielded more than I’d hoped for. It led me to the work of Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist who works with war veterans in Boston and who has won for this work the prestigious MacArthur award. Shay was forty years old and conducting research in neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital when he suffered a stroke that left him temporarily paralyzed on his left side. While recovering, he decided to read classic works that he’d never gotten around to. He read, among others, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Following his recovery, and with his research stalled, he took a temporary position filling in for a psychiatrist at an outpatient clinic, counseling troubled vets. Connections became apparent—and then multiplied. Shay began to see Achilles in every soldier who’d ever felt betrayed by a commander. He saw Odysseus in every soldier who was having difficulty returning home. Odysseus, Shay reminds us, is the last soldier to make it home from Troy. It takes him ten full years, and for at least some part of the journey he, like Bear, remains in “combat mode.” His first act following combat is a violent one in which he and his men raid the coastal city of Ismarus. Odysseus subsequently travels to Hades, the underworld, where, walking among the dead, he must confront his sense of loss and guilt. He is forced to maneuver between the twin dangers of Scylla and Charbydis. What Shay came to realize is that this ancient story could make a soldier who was struggling with readjustment to civilian life feel less alone—part of something much larger. Shay speaks to this in an interview. “One of the things they appreciate,” he says, “is the sense that they’re part of a long historical context—that they are not personally deficient...

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