“We are living in an extreme moment, and one where it’s very hard to know what effective action looks like against crises of a scale we’ve not before encountered. These accounts of people trying to grapple with that reality are sometimes inspiring and often cautionary, and always a spur to thinking about how the rest of us might accomplish the most we can.” – Bill McKibben, author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Lisa Wells is an author, poet, and co-founder of a small, nonprofit press based in Seattle, Washington called Letter Machine Editions. Her …
Author: Swanson
Scott Avett on Being Here for the Feast
“When you look out his [Scott’s] window he’s painting for you.” – Eric Fischl Scott Avett is a visual artist, musician, and songwriter. No amount of descriptors quite do him justice. Scott’s work was met by my ears before my eyes. His songs slip into the ear stream, reverberate off the rib cage and remind the heart it was born free. Scott’s paintings hold your gaze in absorption, jostle you awake, and drop you off a block later. In our conversation today Scott and I talk about creativity and contemplation, mysterious inputs that need to be absence of the thought …
Haleh Liza Gafori on Putting Mystery in the Middle
“Haleh Liza Gafori’s ecstatic and piercing translation has lifted a veil, bringing Rumi closer into the quick of our present. Each poem is a divine invitation. Free your mind. Drown in love.” – V (formerly Eve Ensler) Haleh Liza Gafori is a translator, vocalist, poet, and educator born in New York City of Iranian descent. Her latest work, is a translation of Rumi poems entitled Gold. I first heard one of her translations of Rumi sitting around a campfire on a Sunday morning in Patagonia, Arizona. I was bit by the passion and this conversation does not disappoint. Haleh and …