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Author Meeting Place Interviews Author Joyce White of Belleville, Illinois, USA
This review is from: Sculpting the Heart (Paperback)
"I am an ordinary woman living in an extraordinary, imperfect world."
This phrase sets a poignant beginning to a poignant masterpiece full of humor, honesty and reflection. All of us struggle with depression at some time or another, whether it be from losing our job, or financial burdens we are unprepared for, or some other crisis which steps in and takes control of our lives out of our hands. Depression is one of the most sinister diseases in the world, because it is one that we consider to be ordinary. Yes, of course we're going to feel sad. Yes, of course there are days we're going to feel like we're hanging on to control by a very thin thread.
Guess what? There's no of course about it! No one says that you have to feel that way. You can find an outlet for your depression that allows your heart to heal and your mind to clear by transforming your feelings into a tangible expression through art.
Sculpting the Heart takes you on a personal journey through depression and the healing powers of creative expression. Whether your medium is writing, sculpting, painting or music, creative expression can release the tension and frustration that build up inside your mind and release you from the bars of depression back into the freedom of the real world.
How many book/s have you written?: Two paperback and two ebooks
Please share with us your book titles: Sculpting the Heart: Surviving Depression with Art Therapy
(Condensed) ebook for above: Sculpting the Heart with Art Therapy
Sculpting the Heart's Poetry while Conversing with the Masters (Complete ebook for above)
What genre/s would you like to write in?: Art Therapy, Relationships, Inspirational
Please share with us who or what encourages you to write and why?: I write for my own wellness and the wellness of others. I am 64 and a retired legan transcriber. It is a joy to write my own words rather than others.
How long did it take for you to write your book/s?: 10 years and 2 years
How long did it take for you to publish your book/s?: Two years and one year
Who did you publish with and why?: I published my first book with Authorshouse and the second poetry book with Lulu.com. Authorshouse took too long and made too many typing errors. Lulu was great. I got to type my own work and it was much easier and more perfect.
Please share with us how you prefer to market your book/s? I market on a website, http://www.sculptingtheheart.com, with reviews, and mostly online. I write articles at Triond under the pen name of Winged for Art Therapy. I also write for www.Authorsden.com/joycewhite, Blogit and Facebook, MYSpace, and Twitter.
Please share with us any event/s that you have planned in marketing your book/s:
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Joyce White’s Companion Books
Sculpting the Heart:Surviving Depression with Art Therapy
Sculpting the Heart’s Poetry - While Conversing with the Masters
INTERVIEWS
October 16, 2010. Barbara Hodges interview at Red River Writers No Limits.
September 16, 2010. Rob Bastisa interview at The Funky Writer.
Date pending. Georgia Jones inteview at LadyBugLive.
Date pending. Dallas Woodburn interview at Dallas Woodburn’s Writing Life.
REVIEWS
All reviewers post to multiple sites, some as many as 44 different sites.
Date pending. Denisse Alicea review at The Pen & Muse.
August 4. Fran Lewis review.
Date pending. Jon Renaud review at Action Book Reviews.
Date pending. Carol Langstroth review at MindFog Reviews.
Date pending. Martha Cheves review at A Book and a Dish.
Date pending. Lois C. Henderson review at BookPleasures.
Date pending. Ghostwriter Literary Reviews.
Date pending. Ivy Reisner review at The Writing Cast
Date pending. Review at For Love of Reading
Joyce White has published at Author’s Den, 78 poems and 63 plus articles with glowing reviews; and for Triond she has published many articles including Cohabiting With the Divine Art Therapy and The Unemployment Crisis and Birthing a New You. Joyce writes for Triond Publishing under the pen name of Winged for Art Therapy. If you are happy, you will enjoy Joyce’s books, ebooks and website articles. If you’re not happy, you need them. They are filled with inspirational music, poetry, pictures of her clay art work, articles and activities for your inner artist! Author Website. For Meditation Video’s of Joyce’s Art & that of the Masters.
Backcover Description: I will send a picture of the back cover. Both the front and back is a collage of paintings by the classics. My book is called a work of Ekphrasis poetry, kind of a conversation between me and the paintings.
Book Review/s to share: Playful poems5 The fourth book in Joyce White's Sculpting the Heart series, Sculpting the Heart's Poetry While Conversing with the Masters is a collection of poems that are playful, hopeful, and sometimes even joyful. White does not shy away from serious topics, however. She is able to write about loss, regret, and her own deep fears. White hints at times of depression and hopelessness in her own life. Her readers will do more than share her sorrow, however, and will not be encouraged to wallow in their own. In her poem Tears are like Polliwogs White describes her own optimism in the playful style which runs throughout her poetry.
Tears are like Polliwogs
It is nice to think of tears like polliwogs swimming around in a mortal's eyes, evolving into well- adjusted higher forms,
with better motor control and hand- eye co-ordination, ascending rather than descending,
bending rather than breaking, reaffirming rather than hurting, and smiling rather than frowning,
It's nice to think of sorrow as water, and all those tears escaping where swelling pain had been,
It's nice to think our sorrow will soon evaporate just like our tears, turning our attention to helping others evolve.
The philosophy outlined in this poem provides the template for much of White's work. When she writes of challenges or loss, she includes in each poem a seed of hope that will leave readers feeling lighter even as they are reminded of their own times of sadness. Her hopefulness does not trivialize the subjects of the poems, however. White's optimism is subtle, sometimes no more than her tone or the way she chooses her words. The effect is cumulative, and after reading the entire collection, readers will be left satisfied, energized, and smiling.
Most of the poems in this collection are ekphrastic poems, each written in response to a piece of art, in this case, paintings. White describes ekphrastic poetry as a "conversation between two pieces of art." In these poems, White looks into the soul of the artist to whom she is responding, imagining his thoughts and motivation, turning each painting into a metaphor for the artist's life. Readers will view Picasso's work in a new way, and may even be inspired to visit the nearest museum or gallery.
White has a talent for transforming hardship and grief into something more. She turns these challenges into a way forward, both for herself, and for her readers. She is at her best, however, when she is writing of joy. Her observations of children, animals, and nature capture her subjects' ability to fully live in the moment and to celebrate that moment. Happy Children, below, is a perfect illustration.
Happy Children
Happy children are all-stars, curious jugs of sunshine, their faces radiant,
their eyes metaphors of emptiness and fullness perfectly contained, their naiveté keeps us entertained,
they don't think about anything too long, peanut butter keeps them energized, they have happy feet, elastic faces,
like acrobats they ride bareback on wild stallions with wings, they train smarter, not harder, slow and steady gets them there,
they balance fun with rest, and they lie on their backs and take pleasure in moments of nothingness.
Joyce White's tone is honest, friendly, never preachy. Many of the poems in this collection are written in the first person, but White's voice is present, even when she does not specifically include herself. Readers will feel as though she is confiding in them. White chooses her words carefully, having fun with their sounds and meanings. She also employs metaphors, never saying more than necessary to make her point or to create an image. It is easy to read White's poems and easy to find meaning within them. When readers go back to reread a few favorites, they will find that the poems are even better the second and third time.
Quill says: Playful poems that will leave readers hopeful even when their subjects are sad or difficult.
Poetry as a conversation between two artworks makes for insightful reading5 This collection of poetry is filled with poems that reveal Joyce White's secret, innermost feelings. She finds that writing poetry is an outstanding way of focusing on visual art of the masters. White states that "[e]kphrastic poetry...makes an excellent conversation between two pieces of art." In her foreword to the collection, White thanks Picasso, Chagall, and all the other artists whose work she tries to match with her own paintings and poetry. Referring to the writing of poetry as a means by which to confront past circumstances as a form of poem therapy, White makes the reader aware of the close connection that there is between different art forms.
What is `ekphrastic' poetry? Not a term with which I was familiar at first glance, I must admit, but, according to Word4Word poets ([...]), meaning "a poet's response to the direct stimuli of a piece of art combined with the poet's own experience in the moment. The Ekphrastic poem can be a description of the artwork, a story that came into the poet's mind while looking at the artwork, or a poem describing the scene or experience in which the artwork is placed, or a combination of all of the above." Much as I feel about my book reviews, White writes "[t]here is no such thing as writer's block when we use others ideas to inspire us." Her poems in this book have been composed in response to a number of different artworks, which are reproduced in full pages of black and white in this volume. Such artworks include Renoir's By the Seashore, Picasso's Les Demoiselles, Rafael's Angels, Picasso's Girl in Mirror, and Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. She also includes the photograph of! a collage which she has created from the work of Chagall.
The ability to respond to nature is of key importance to the creation of all forms of art, White finds. White highlights the needs of poets, which she links closely to journaling, in that both forms of expression allow one to capture fleeting thoughts and emotions. Her approach is summed up in her poem `Our Inner Poet': "When art comes to consciousness, / whether it be Haiku, epic or free verse, / if it looks and sounds like a poem, it is,...".
White's poems, which are all in free verse, should appeal to all those who are responsive to both the visual and written forms of artistic expression. Inspirational and accessible, her poems should uplift your spirit and might even encourage you to start on your own personal exploration of the creative potential within you. [Reviewer for [...]
Email to share: wjoycewhite@gmail.com
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