My guest this week is Dr. Nadia Colburn, a poet and author of a new book of poetry entitled I Say the Sky (affiliate link).
Topics we discussed included:
Developing greater interest in poetry later in life
Turning to poetry as a spiritual or devotional practice
The ability of poetry to express or point to things that are difficult to capture
The emotional connection that poetry can inspire
Presence that exists outside of traditional narrative
Readings from Nadia’s books
Wanting to live and yet forgetting we’re alive right here and now
Mistaking the world for a task
Making the body more spacious so it can contain more
The ongoing life of the past into the present
The dialogue between writing and meditation
Letting go of the desire to show that we’re good and acceptable
Nadia’s description and evocation of the experience of anxiety in her poem “Anxiety”
The missingness of poetry, according to Kieran Setiya
Nadia Colburn, PhD, is also the author of The High Shelf.
Her poetry and prose have appeared in more than 80 publications, including the New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Spirituality & Health, Lion’s Roar, and the Yale Review.
Nadia holds a PhD in English from Columbia University. She is the founder of Align Your Story writing school, which brings traditional literary and creative writing studies together with mindfulness, embodied practices, and social and environmental engagement.
Learn more about Nadia at her website, where you can also find meditations and other free resources.
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