Ellen Bass: Ellen Bass on the Power of Poetry in Your Life

The One You Feed

Eric Zimmer

Education, Self-improvement, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness, Buddhism, Mental Health

4.6 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2018

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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Ellen Bass is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her work has won award after award and rightly so - there's something so powerful, beautiful, true and often times darkly funny in her work. She says that writing poetry - as well as reading it - is an inquiry more than a description. Isn't that an interesting perspective to consider? In this episode, you'll hear her read some of her work, share her insights and experiences in life, talk about the process of writing poetry and offer some ideas that perhaps you had not considered before - especially in the way she does. Regardless of whether or not you think of yourself as a lover of poetry, you'll be touched by this episode.

She is the author of Like a Beggar, The Human Line, Mules of Love, and The Courage to Heal

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In This Interview, Ellen Bass and I Discuss...

The Wolf Parable
Her book, Like a Beggar
That poetry is an inquiry more than a description
Discovering something about oneself when writing and reading poetry
Her poem, Relax
Tasting life
Thinking about how you are "right now"
The role of finding similarities in disparate things when using metaphor
The oneness of the world
Working hard in the chair to be a poet
How no one would expect a person to pick up a saxophone and immediately be able to play and the same is true for writing poetry
Her poem, Asking Directions in Paris
Using God in her poetry
Her poem, If You Knew
How because of mortality, one day, we as individuals are going to lose everything
That poetry helps us to see deeply into the beauty of things that are right in front of us
Introducing poetry to others as you would a novel
The important role of humor
Poets she mentioned:
Marie Howe
Jericho Brown
Natalie Diaz

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I just love humor and tragedy real close together.
0:14.0	Welcome to the One You Feed.
0:16.0	Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
0:20.5	quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
0:26.1	And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
0:30.4	We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear.
0:35.1	We see what we don't have instead of what we do.
0:38.0	We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
0:41.4	But it's not just about thinking.
0:43.4	Our actions matter.
0:44.9	It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living.
0:49.7	This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
0:54.1	how they feed their good wolf.
1:11.5	Thanks for joining us.
1:12.8	Our guest on this episode is Ellen Bass, a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
1:18.5	Her most recent book, Like a Beggar, was a finalist for the Patterson Poetry Prize,
1:24.0	The Publishers Triangle Award, The Milk Kessler Poetry Award, The Lambda Literary Award,
1:29.6	and The Northern California Book Award.
1:32.1	Ellen founded Poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison
1:36.4	and the Santa Cruz California Jails.
1:38.9	She currently teaches in the Low Residency MFA Writing Program at Pacific University.
1:47.3	Hi friends, there's a couple of other ways to feed your good wolf in addition to just listening
	...

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