with John Fox

This workshop resonates with a quote by Linda McCarriston, "Poetry allows one to speak with a power that is not granted by our culture." John says that for a caring person it is a challenge to find language in our culture that offers a humane and noble way of responding to seemingly intractable problems like social injustice, economic inequity, oppression, terrorism and war. Media focuses on fear and politicians often rely on partisanship, none of which encourages our hearts to open. How can we learn a language that helps us to bear witness to the real needs of the world? John will draw upon the work of Marge Piercey, Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, Nazim Hikmet, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Thich Nhat Hanh, Odysseas Elytis and Denise Levertov, among others to promote and encourage us in poem-making that speaks truth and empowers us to recognize common ground.

For the past three years, John has worked with a group in London called The Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture. This is a group that sprang out of the work of Amnesty International. The founder, Helen Bamber, was originally involved there -- but she recognized a need to provide medical/therapeutic care to such refugees and so started this foundation. John says of this work, "I have been invited by the director of their writing program, Sonja Linden, who helps people to speak the truth of their terrible stories...a kind of witness program for those who work with Sonja. I've had the privilege of presenting to their staff over three years. Certainly nothing that confers any status on me but it has made me sensitive to those issues." John has also reviewed Sonja's new book related to this work in the Museletter.

About John Fox: John Fox, poet and certified poetry therapist, is an associate professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He also teaches at John F. Kennedy University, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, throughout the United States and in Europe. He is the author of Finding What You Didn't Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making and Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. John is president-elect of NAPT.

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