Saturday, December 29, 2018

2018 Book Lists

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2018/10/online_best_of_76.html

Saturday, November 03, 2018

MOOC Psychology of Art Syllabus





Certificate for Psychology of Art and Creativity received after 5 hour vigil online.
Of special note to bibliotherapy is Module 5: Can Creativity Heal?

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund

Quotes:
When I read I withdraw from the phenomenal world. I turn my attention "inward." Paradoxically, I turn outward toward the book I am holding, and, as if the book were a mirror, I feel as though I am looking inward. ...
When I read, my retirement from the phenomenal world is undertaken too quickly to notice. The world in front of me and the world "inside" me are not merely adjacent, but overlapping; superimposed. A book feels like the intersection of these two domains--or like a conduit; a bridge; a passage between them. ...
An open book acts as a blind--its boards and pages shut out the world's glamorous stimuli and encourage the imagination.

 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20758127-what-we-see-when-we-read
Also, the read-alikes associated with the title look quite promising for the obsessive/compulsive reader appetite.

Monday, October 08, 2018

OVERSTORY Richard Powers

Powers is holding his spot as my favorite contemporary writer. OVERSTORY exceeded all expectations. I'll never look at trees the same way again. Here are a few quotes to ponder:


"...cuing, priming, framing, confirmation bias, and the conflation of correlation with causality--all these faults, built into the brain of the most problematic of large mammals."

"As certain as weather coming from the west, the things people know for sure will change. There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking."

"Everything in the forest is the forest. Competition is not separable from endless flavors of cooperation. Trees fight no more than do the leaves on a single tree. It seems most of nature isn't red in tooth and claw, after all. For one, those species at the base of the living pyramid have neither teeth nor talons. But if trees share their storehouses, then every drop of red must float on a sea of green."

"There are a hundred thousand species of love, separately invented, each more ingenious than the last, and every one of them keeps making things."

"Disaster is, as actuarial science proves..., just another number."

"...myths are basic truths twisted into mnemonics, instructions posted from the past, memories waiting to become predictions."

"...anchoring, causal base rate errors, the endowment effect, availability, belief perserverance, confirmation, illusory correlation, cuing--all the biases you've learned about..."

"Mastery gets on board, goes online, and a million more lonely boys emigrate to the new and improved Neverland."

"Play becomes the engine of human growth."

"...memory is always a collaboration in progress."

"You can't see what you don't understand. But what you think you already understand, you'll fail to notice."

"Dying is life, too."

"Life has a way of talking to the future. It's called memory."

"Ta-ne Mahuta, Yggdrasil, Jian-Mu, the Tree of Good and Evil, the indestructible Asvattha with roots above and branches below. Then she's back at the original World Tree."

"...what life wants from people, and how it might use them."

 "This is how it must go. There will be catastrophes. Disastrous setbacks and slaughters. but life is going someplace. It wants to know itself, it wants the power of choice. It wants solutions to problems that nothing alive yet know how to solve, and it's willing to use even death to find them."

"Our home has been broken into. Our lives are being endangered. The law allows for all necessary force against unlawful and imminent harm."

The Overstory

In reading this novel, I searched for the connecting tendrils between the stories of the many diverse characters. I searched for the story's hero, but instead found not one but many. The psychologist, the scientist-forester-ranger, the artist, the vet, the death survivor, the actuary, the advocates, the lawyer, the wannabe actress, computer programmer, academics, engineers, even the supporting characters radiate intention and quest. The background characters blocking evolutionary pathways, whether judges-police-lumbermen, are as incidental as mountains and life goes on growing around the unsympathetic groundswell.

The Pacific Northwest is the setting for much of the story, but the entire U.S. is traversed with Powers connecting roots of characters and trees from coast to coast. Botanical drawings are interspersed throughout the text, almost like portraits, the trees themselves the real heroes.

Chapters are divided: Roots, Nicholas Hoel, Mimi Ma, Adam Appich, Ray Brinkman and Dorothy Cazaly, Douglas Pavlicek, Neelay Mehta, Patricia Westerford, Olivia Vandergriff, Trunk, Crown, Seeds. Each chapter is a novel in its own right and each main character is associated with a tree species: chestnuts, pine, elm-ash-ironwood-maple, oak-linden, fig-banyan, redwoods, beech, ginko, apple. The myths, historical and factual information alone are mind-blowing, but all together they transcend the novel form into a text that can only be described as a lesson in life.

(paraphrased) Three trees: Lote-boundary of the 7th heaven that none shall pass, mulberry-of the magical elixir of life, and Now--the tree that grows all around us and in us and follows us wherever we go. Luohan Arhats-adepts who have passed through the four stages of Enlightenment and now live in pure, knowing joy. A sacred tapestry: leaning on a staff in a forest opening, peering through the narrow window in a wall, sitting underneath a twisted pine. Powers is the silkworm weaving the spirit of all of these disparate experiences together in one massive tome, a testament to the beauty and power of nature.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

References from 2017 Person-Centered Medical Journal

. Mar RA, Oatley K, Peterson JB. Exploring the link between reading fiction and empathy: Ruling out individual differences and examining outcomes Communications. 2009;34(4):407-28.
. Mar RA, Oatley K, Hirsh J, Dela Paz J, Peterson JB. Bookworms versus nerds: Exposure to fiction versus non-fiction, divergent associations with social ability, and the simulation of fictional social worlds. Journal of Research in Personality. 2006;40(5):694-712.
. Kidd DC, Castano E. Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind. Science 2014;342(6156):377-80.
. Dovey C. Can Reading Make You Happier? : The New Yorker 2015 [cited 2015 September 30 ]. Available from: www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/can-reading-make-you-happier
. Cloninger CR, Salloum IM, Mezzich JE (2012): The dynamic origins of positive health and well being. International Journal of Person Centered Medicine 2: 179- 187.
. Katz G, Watt JA. Bibliotherapy: The Use of Books in Psychiatric Treatment Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 1992;37(3):173-8.
. McCulliss D. Bibliotherapy: Historical and research perspectives. Journal of Poetry Therapy. 2012;25(1):23-38.
. Cohen L. Phenomenology of Therapeutic Reading with Implications for Research and Practice of Bibliotherapy The Arts in Psychotherapy 1994 21(1):37-44.
. Hynes AM, Hynes-Berry A. Bibliotherapy: The interactive process. Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1986.
. Shrodes C. Bibliotherapy: A theoretical and clinical-experimental study. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation ]. In press 1950.
. Furness R. An evaluation of a Books on Prescription scheme in a UK public library authority Health Information & Libraries Journal. 2012;29:333-7.
. Macdonald J, Vallance D, McGrath M. An evaluation of a collaborative bibliotherapy scheme delivered via a library service. Journal of Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing. 2013;20(10):857-65.
. Neville P. Prose not Prozac? The role of book prescription schemes and healthy reading schemes in the treatment of mental illness in Ireland. Health Sociology Review. 2013;22(1):19-36.
. Marrs RW. A Meta-Analysis of Bibliotherapy Studies American Journal of Community Psychology. 1995;23(6):843-64.
. Cuijpers P. Bibliotherapy in Unipolar Depression: A Meta-Analysis Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry. 1997;28(2):139-47.
. Gregory RJ, Schwer Canning S, Lee TW, Wise JC. Cognitive Bibliotherapy for Depression: A Meta-Analysis. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. 2004;35(3):275-80.
. Gellatly J, Bower P, Hennessy S, Richards D, Gilbody S, Lovell K. What makes self-help interventions effective in the management of depressive symptoms? Meta-analysis and meta-regression Psychological Medicine. 2007;37:1217-28.
. Fanner D, Urquhart C. Bibliotherapy for mental health service users Part 1: a systematic review. Health Information & Libraries Journal. 2008;25(4):237-52.
. Chamberlain D, Heaps D, Robert I. Bibliotherapy and information prescriptions: A summary of the published evidence-base and recommendations from past and ongoing Books on Prescription projects. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. 2008;15(1):24-36.
. Kreuter EA, Reiter S. Building resilience in the face of loss and irrelevance: Poetic methods for personal and professional transformation. Journal of Poetry Therapy. 2014;27(1):13-24.
. Conlon A. The use of poetry in reconciling unfinished business near end-of-life. Journal of Poetry Therapy. 2012;25(1):1-8.
. Schneider NM, Peterson M, Gathercoal KA, Hamilton E. The effect of bibliotherapy on anxiety in children with cancer. International Journal of Child Health and Human Development. 2013;6(3):337-45.
. Wexler M. A poetry program for the very elderly-Narrative perspective on one therapeutic model. Journal of Poetry Therapy. 2014;27(1):35-46.
. Bembry JX, Zentgraf S, Baffour T. Social skills training through poetry therapy: A group intervention with schizophrenic patients. Journal of Poetry Therapy. 2013;26(2):73-82.
. Tamura H. Poetry therapy for schizophrenia: A linguistic psychotherapeutic model of renku (linked poetry). The Arts in Psychotherapy. 2001;28(5):319-28.
. Cocking A, Astill J. Using literature as a therapeutic tool with people with moderate and borderline learning disabilities in a forensic setting. British Journal of Learning Disabilities. 2004;32(1):16-23.
. Duffy JT. A heroic journey: Re-conceptualizing adjustment disorder through the lens of the hero's quest. Journal of Systemic Therapies. 2010;29(4):1-16.
. Petrescu I, MacFarlane K, Ranzijn R. Psychological effects of poetry workshops with people with early stage dementia: An exploratory study. Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice. 2014;13(2):207-15.
. Mohammadian Y, Shahidi S, Mahaki B, Mohammadi AZ, Baghban AA, Zayeri F. Evaluating the use of poetry to reduce signs of depression, anxiety and stress in Iranian female students. The Arts in Psychotherapy. 2011;38(1):59-63.
. Dowrick C, Billington J, Robinson J, Hamer A, Williams C. Get into Reading as an intervention for common mental health problems: exploring catalysts for change. Medical Humanities. 2012;38(1):15-20.
. Tegner I, Fox J, Philipp R, Thorne P. Evaluating the use of poetry to improve well-being and emotional resilience in cancer patients. Journal of Poetry Therapy. 2009; 22(3):121-31.

Monday, August 20, 2018

Read More Online Poetry: Ink Node

https://www.inknode.com/emilypettit/because-you-can-have-this-idea-about-being-afraid-of-something

It's hard for me to rationalize buying books of poetry. Whether I see it as too self-indulgent, or I'm too miserly,  as much as a bibliophile as I am it's been one of the lesser evils in terms of my book buying obsessions. It's like buying art... Am I really that kind of person--the person who can afford to buy art?

That's changing a little as I allow myself to write more poetry and do more art. Using art as the clearer example: I am learning to see more since I've begun drawing and painting. I've learned to not just see what I expect to see but to acknowledge there's more there there than meets the eye, if you know what to look for. In art, there are shadows and edges and white spaces. In poetry, there are pauses, shadings and reflections.

Online is ideal territory for finding and viewing both art and poetry, whether it's the classics at some of the well-known museums or universities:
ART
https://images.nga.gov/?service=category&action=show_content_page&language=en&category=16
http://mentalfloss.com/article/75809/12-world-class-museums-you-can-visit-online
or specialized wiki-type encyclopedias
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/
or virtual art galleries
https://www.deviantart.com/
POETRY
(search "poetry" on this site for some links)




Saturday, July 28, 2018

Thursday, July 12, 2018

More FutureLearn Poems

No matter how much
stretching
our hearts attempt,
even at a distance,
I see you hurt
because we do not fit.

Keith lives on Young Street,
West of Olympia,
Mudd Bay Freeway
to Steamboat Island.
Drive carefully,
soft shoulders.

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Thoughts on Rhyme from How to Make a Poem

I have found it fun and helpful to play with rhyme when I am suffering from writer's block. It's like the block occurs because there are too many words from which to choose, creating a blockage in the conscious channel of the mind. By limiting the words to ones that rhyme, the blockage is loosened and flow can be reinstated. Later, it may be desirable to go back and edit out the rhyme if it sounds too cliche, but the rhyme has served a purpose either way. Rhyming seems to allow the mind to drift to a more lyrical, unconscious level where Pete picks a peck of pickled peppers (obviously not a rhyme, but an example of how a little silliness can loosen the death grip our hyper conscious censors wield over our creative efforts.

Futurelearn How to Make a Poem exercise

Why so many?
Because these
bound
pages
of ink
are my tools.

My hammers,
My squares,
My drills
for repairs.

The right tool
for the job...
You say,
with blue collar
confidence,
makes all the
Difference.

Cento by Hsintao Chang

Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation
What falls away is always. And is near

"when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story" By Gwendolyn Brooks
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49269/when-you-have-forgotten-sunday-the-love-story

"The Waking" By Theodore Roethke
https://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/waking

Compliments of Hsintao Chang
From FutureLearn.com How to Make a Poem

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Found Poems

Another exercise from FutureLearn.com: How to Make a Poem

Not My Mother's Keeper

Mothers are dying after childbirth
and are all slightly insane
You can't fix your mother

We are all hard-wired for bonding
how strong you are to have made it this far
Mothers are like that, yeah they are


Sources:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/too-many-mothers-are-dying-after-childbirth-hospital-hopes-save-n873531

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10858-mothers-are-all-slightly-insane

https://www.bustle.com/articles/123975-6-signs-you-have-a-toxic-mother

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yZJLWkzYyE

Monday, July 09, 2018

Cento = a poem collage

A cento is a poem that is made from lines of other poems, a poetic collage.

An exercise from the Future Learn free course on How to Make a Poem:

No longer the light of my dream before me
But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought


Langston Hughes "As I Grew Older" https://allpoetry.com/As-I-Grew-Older
Shakespeare's "Sonnet 44" http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/44.html

Poem collage! How brilliant...I could do this all day long. : )

The thing that really gets me, is how not only are the lines and words of the poem descriptive, but there is an invitation to read the whole of both poems in relation to the selections as well as consider the works and life of the poet's experience in relation to the poem. Layers upon layers of meaning and insight...

Tools for Writers

http://www.writerlywords.com/tools/

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

What We See When We Read

by Peter Mendelsund
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/237251/what-we-see-when-we-read-by-peter-mendelsund/

https://www.amazon.com/What-We-See-When-Read/dp/0804171637/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530125983&sr=8-1&keywords=what+we+see+when+we+read

Described as a phenomenology of reading, I thought it might be interesting to record my impressions here as I am reading the book.

Published in 2014, so not a new title, but new to me and welcome as I am experiencing my own renaissance as reader with a big toe holding open a doorway to the visual arts.

Mendelsund is an artist/designer and visual thinker. The book is as much about processing the images as it is about reading the words.

One of the first questions in the book asks the reader to visualize one of their favorite characters. Then asks us to describe the character.

I found myself wanting to default to the author's appearance or my mind wandered to what the "consensus" version from movies or other predefined images might be out there circulating.

Though when I thought about it later, I conceded that these first impressions were  not what I experienced while reading.

While reading, I am all of the characters. Good and bad. Saintly and wicked. Ugly and beautiful.

So, my answer to your question, Peter, is they look like me. But male, or younger, or another species, bigger, or shorter, wiser, sillier.

Friday, April 27, 2018

Book Riot Cyberpunk List

https://bookriot.com/2018/04/26/cyberpunk-books/

For anyone that's been reading any of my posts, few and far between as they might be, you know cyberpunk is my favorite genre fiction.

Book Riot List of Literary Memoirs

https://bookriot.com/2018/04/26/great-literary-memoirs/

A well-written memoir can be just the bibliotherapeutic prescription for solace when feeling that it's you against the world. In reading you find, it's you and the author battling many of the same battles, staring down the barrel at many of the same enemies.

Friday, April 06, 2018

Lynda Barry Analog is revoltionary...

http://thenearsightedmonkey.tumblr.com/post/172244630859/dear-students-writing-by-hand-on-paper-is

Tuesday, January 09, 2018

Aspects of the Novel

The novelist E.M. Forster (1927) explains a story is ‘a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence’ and a plot is ‘also a narrative of events, with the emphasis falling on causality.’ (Forster, E. (1927) Aspects of the Novel, Harmondsworth: Pelican. p. 87.)
For example, ‘The king died, and then the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot.
This is because there is a reason given for the queen dying. In a story, someone dying is not in itself interesting. It is the reason for the death that fascinates the reader, especially if the reason is connected with something that has happened to, or been done by, another character.

Monday, January 08, 2018

Blank pages

"Remember, sometimes the best inspiration comes after the first few pages."
Prep
Gathering information or research.
Visualization: 'Unpacking’ an image, and discovering its significance through writing about it.
Length: Approximate before you write it.
Shape: Dialogue or description? Sections or scenes?"

Continue

The schoolroom was full of light, yet a bit worn at the proverbial heels. So many anticipations and expectations thwarted or encouraged in the space of 60 minute intervals, day in, day out. Each student wondering: Will this be mentor? Will this be nemesis? Will this teacher "hold forth" or be an "active learner" along side us? Give me your fresh ideas and enthusiasm, share with me your dreams and aspirations, and I will reach deep inside my soul to find my own. The scuffed and chalky floors, the lack of air conditioning, the noise from down the hall won't matter as I am transported through transference to a mystical, magical place full of pure, shared thought.
I stopped my flow of thought for the umpteenth time that day, hell, more like hour. I knew the words wouldn't be there when I turned back to the page. Well, there would be words, but they would be different. The direction would have shifted slightly and the rhythm would have skipped a beat or two. Perhaps the change would be noticed by the reader, perhaps not, but here was a another destination I would miss, another depot without a connection. Laying tracks requires some degree of privacy, I noted, and sounded the whistle.

Writing and routines

Routine seems antithema to my creative process. However, having a "room of one's own" aka space physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually is paramount. A window in one's mind, from which to survey experience, allows the muse to enter and also allows for the curtains to be drawn when we are not yet ready to reveal or confront what we know.

Free online writing wkshps

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/futurelearn/fiction

FutureLearn Start writing fiction...

So different and yet so much the same as her predecessors, the shy little kitten had become a young feline, strong and agile, full of attitude, replete with studied indifference. I watched her move from cat tree to cat bed to a corner of crumpled covers where I had just been sleeping. As I stretched a hand out to cuddle her, she jumped lithely to the window seat where a bird chattered enticingly, yet comfortably, out of reach.
I lie here propped up with a million pillows, observer of the observing. Her view is limited by a screen and panes of glass; she would not welcome full access even if it were to tasty tweetful feathers. She is a shy and cautious cat, hesitant to accept a caress, hiding at the first sign of infringement on her space. Her favorite spot always wherever I am not.
I yearn to hold her silky soft and purring, feeling the weight of her relaxation as she melts into my lap. But no, her spot is high on my chest, as close to being wrapped around my neck as she once was when a wee fur ball tucked under my chin.
No, now, her big feet with the extra toes, pick the tenderest spot on my chest to plant themselves, whether coming or going from my furtive, stolen embraces.