Other People's Words Other People's Words

“Phenomenal Woman” was written by Maya Angelou and originally published in an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine in 1978, and then in And Still I Rise, her third volume of collected poetry, later that same year. Dr. Mica Mitchell tells of how this poem helped shape her as a girl moving into womanhood and continues to inspire her today. 

It seems we need reminders from time to time about what deserves our limited time and energy. Dr. Craig Bowrun reads “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” by Wendell Berry, to help remind us to whom or what we should devote ourselves.

How do you define love? How do you describe it to someone else? Mark Joesting reads an excerpt from Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love to do just that. Some of Mark’s work can be found here. It’s wicked good.

We are living a path blindly. Sarah Troedson Haynes relates how the advice from a revered figure gave her comfort and freedom at a time in her life, much like Franz Xaver Kappus did with Rainer Maria Rilke in the early 20th century. She reads an excerpt from Letters from a Young Poet.

Have you ever been un-dragoned? Jeremy Nilson reads an excerpt from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third book in The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis, in which the character of Eustace recounts how he was changed back from a dragon into a boy. Jeremy uses the tale as a parallel for his own experiences […]

The Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir from Joan Didion, describing the time after her husband passed away. She gives clear and direct words to the tangle of emotions we experience during a period of mourning. The last year or so certainly hasn’t been magical, and for far too many people, it has involved the loss […]