Author: Narya Rose Deckard
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On Healing and Story
On Healing and Story There are many levels of healing when we tell our stories. We externalize that which we hold in. What we hear ourselves say and what another hears us say validates our story. We speak ourselves into being. Sometimes we don’t know our story until a person listens to it. It… Read more
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Money Doesn’t Make Me a Better Human
Post MFA in Creative Writing Commencement Reflection Must we be useful? Or maybe, must we define “useful” through solely capitalist measures? That question is what drives me as I think about what others have said about the MFA world, poetry, and graduating with a creative writing degree. Kristi York writes in her blog post “The… Read more
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Linda Hogan’s poem “Eucalyptus” and Imagining the Self
By losing herself, the speaker in Linda Hogan’s poem finds herself: “and like the tree I can lose myself/layer after layer.” “Eucalyptus,” the first poem in her collection Rounding the Human Corners, though it begins in the present, quickly references the ancient past to draw upon its wisdom (“the others are… Read more
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Plant Your Words
It’s spring, but I feel a little like I’ve missed the seasonal transition from being so busy: I just clicked submit to send my poetry thesis to my supervisor as partial completion for my MFA in creative writing. My husband and I put a house up for sale that I bought fourteen years ago and… Read more
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Tulip Poplars Printed!
My poem “Tulip Poplars” has been printed by Tiny Seed Journal! You can read it here: https://tinyseedjournal.com/2022/10/30/tulip-poplars/ The poem will be in their later printed anthology. Thank you, Tiny Seed Journal, and thank you, beautiful tulip poplars, which have turned a lovely bright yellow for autumn. Read more
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Growing Love and Thorns
“Growing Love and Thorns While Reading Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’” My husband and I, fatigued from pandemic fear and wishing to travel as Covid-19 restrictions had decreased, planned a trip to Europe this summer. We wished to visit friends in Austria and Belgium who couldn’t attend our wedding in 2021, and my husband had… Read more
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“That Hairy Heart Inside of Us”
“That Hairy Heart Inside of Us” – Some thoughts on Daniel Ogden’s new book and wolves. “To be rigorous about wolves—you might as well expect rigor of clouds.” – Barry Lopez Of Wolves and Men Daniel Ogden’s new book The Werewolf in the Ancient World is a survey of primarily classical Greece stories of… Read more
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Beasts of Prairie and Woods
Review of Beloved Beasts by Michelle Nijhuis Corpses of bison strewn across a field. An 1899 woodcut of a woman adorned in feathers, a live bird, clutched by its tail, held aloft in one hand. A man wearing a camouflage coat wades through snow, hoping to find wolf tracks, eager for “the visitors… Read more
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End of Semester Questions
My first blog post I ended with some questions that I wanted to ponder after completing my first MFA semester. Now that I have completed 33 credits of my MFA in Creative Writing degree, I have even more questions. How do I be attentive to my world? How do I learn to witness myself? The… Read more
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Breaking Barriers
Sawtooth edged bamboo leaves like a rose and its thorns. I know: bamboo may not have the soft petals, the sweet aroma lingering in the air, the burst of bright pink and red popping out of deep green leaves and stems; nor does bamboo have the jutting thorns, sharp needle-point protrusions so easily spied.… Read more