Poetry, Passion, & Pleasure With Dale Biron

Love may be the only workable response to the ecological devastation we face. Even fierce resistance goes better with love. To confront the sheer magnitude of our ecological polly-crisis and predicament without art in general, and poetry in particular, is not only a recipe for despair, it also reduces the likelihood of success by some major and terrifying degree. The great writer and earth lover, Wallace Stegner once said, Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed . . . One means of sanity is to retain a hold on the natural world.  Be a good animal by listening to this episode to learn  many more wise things said by Wallace Stegner, including how to be a good animal.

Eco-grief is real and growing. We ignore it at our peril, especially for those who wish to act in healing support of the natural world. Poetry is a potent tool for working with all kinds of grief. In this podcast, we'll explore how poetry can become one of our most practical means of working with eco-grief, with all its complexities and paradoxical qualities.

In this episode, featuring the amazing poet William Carlos Williams, we will explore how stories that seem so right can be so wrong and damaging. Specifically, we’ll take on an incredibly enduring cultural story referred to as “The Tragedy of The Commons” most recently presented in a 1968 essay in the journal Science. It would become one of the most unquestioned, accepted and cited scientific papers ever. But what if it's simply not true...

In this episode, featuring the amazing poet Rumi, we will explore the ecological predicament we're in and how poetry can play a vital helping role. It’s never been more critical to understand the history, facts, and context of our ecological crisis. However, if we only dwell on the difficult and painful facts, we risk overwhelm and eventually despair. Good, well-chosen poetry flies under the radar screen of the logical, linear mind directly to the heart. It allows us to more easily rest in the truth that we are already living. We might say it this way...To hear the earth's most difficult truths requires a mind that's receptive and open.And to bear the full weight of those truths, takes the strongest heart, even as it is broken. In this way, a broken heart is not a handicap. It is the heart grown numb, incapable of feeling that is our deeper challenge. In fact, a broken heart may be the only kind of heart that is capable of engaging with our current ecological predicament with the skill and equanimity required to participate in real and effective change. 

Can we be smart but not wise? Our old wisdom is failing us in dramatic ways. We have ecological challenges everywhere we look, from climate, to soil erosion, to deforestation, to habitat destruction, to vast plastic and chemical pollution, to extinctions, to ocean acidification. What happens when we forget the new ecological stories we most need to survive? The new stories that tell us we cannot continue to grow infinitely on a finite planet. Poems can help us be wiser. Poems can be our memory hacks for "re-member-ing" ourselves in more skillful ways. 

Robert Bly is the perfect poet for those interested in and working toward healing the planet. (Not to mention healing ourselves.) Bly brings just the right combination of inspiration, surprise, humor, and a much needed deep wisdom. Enjoy this first podcast episode of the new format and focus.

Before we’re done with this episode, we’ll cover some amazing opportunities, even in the face of all our challenges. That’s the “light” part! (But first, some questions to nibble on.) How are you making sense of this war? What are you reading? Who are you talking with and to whom are you listening? What are you believing? Have you formed an opinion about what ought to be done to resolve the war? When you query your mind and heart, what response comes back?

Can a poem describe you better than you can? Yes, it's true, and maybe that's one of the reasons we love them so much. Let's explore this question further. My advice? Just let your poem-loving hedonism rule... 

The earth is blaring an ear-piercing, mind-numbing, heart-breaking alarm telling us we’re in deep trouble. We're in trouble with unprecedented levels of species extinction, topsoil loss, habitat destruction, melting solar caps, chemical contamination, fishery collapse, climate-caused fires, droughts, and sea level rise plus, of course all the human challenges that are joined at the hip with these things. Let’s talk about the role of faith in all of this and how it may actually be more needed than hope. And how paradoxically it may return us to a greater, more genuine hope by creating a foundation of faith first. Oh, and there will be poems to help us...

Friends don't let friends read boring poetry. So how can you find your personalized collection of exciting, inspiring, life-changing poems? Here are my three simple, down-to-earth guidelines after helping thousands of people discover the poetry they loved and needed in their lives.

So many of the stories we grew up with and our culture keeps telling us no longer make sense. And in terms of their lived outcomes, they are increasingly turning out to be disastrous. Our minds and hearts reject these narratives, these patterns, these meanings. The very purpose of art (and especially poetry) is to create new stories, new patterns, new meanings that help make the world more regenerative, kind, and life-affirming.  Let's dive into just such poems.

Wild women poets are courageous, connected, and creative, and they ask and receive much from their muses. You won't want to miss the final podcast episode in a trilogy honoring more amazing, powerful, and attitude-altering women poets. 

Available now! A second full dose of wild women poets served up fresh, defiant, and highly captivating for both head and heart. Let me tease with some provocative words from this episode from wild women poet, Audre Lorde: “When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” 

Wild women poets are not afraid to delve into their inner complexities, vulnerabilities, and paradoxes. And by doing so, they help us with our vulnerabilities, insights, and ultimately internal forgiveness. They model self-compassion so that we might tip-toe into those often foreign lands ourselves. Wild women poets speak candidly about the world, its joys, and unfathomable mysteries, along with its crushing tragedies and terrors. And it’s this integration that releases so much energy within their lives (and ours).

Why did the great philosopher-poet Wendell Berry once exclaim, "The mind that is not baffled is not employed." Naturally, we avoid confusion. However, harnessed and used skillfully, it can help us resolve our epoch's most significant political, environmental, and climate challenges. Cue the podcast, fire up the hand-picked poems, prepare the ground for new thinking and feeling.

What if we had special, practical, beautiful hand-made tools made from language to help us be more courageous in our everyday lives? That is precisely what we’re going for in this new episode of Dale Biron's Poetry Podcast... A Fresh Glimpse of Knowing. 

In this episode, Dale focuses on poems to help those of us who are a little too hard on ourselves. So if you tend to not be on your own side in too many instances, you may want to pay particular attention to this episode. Self-compassion may not always be the norm, but with the right poetry, it can become much more prevalent and widespread…

In this episode, Dale uses poetry to sneak up on and provide fresh insight into the most significant challenge facing humankind. You'll hear some great poetry, timely aphorisms, commentary, and more...

The simple, basic, foundational fact we must understand to be successful in any creative (especially artistic) endeavor...

When we create stories about human nature, based upon observing traumatized humans, we get a picture that is both predictable and wrong. –Musings of a Poet