In Response to “In the Dry Months”: A Review of Orphans
I posted this East Hampton Star review last week. What follows is my response to a question raised in the first paragraph (I’ve included it below) which ultimately concerns all of us and I’d love to hear your thoughts. While it is a truth that anyone who lives to old age will experience inevitable deterioration, the […]
A Guest Post for Girl Who Reads
An Unexamined Life Stage by Joan Cusack Handler, Ph. D.| April 18, 2016 I’ve been a psychologist in clinical practice for more than 30 years. Not surprisingly, I’m also a writer who focuses on the emotional and psychological underpinnings of human experience. Committed to meticulously preserving client confidentiality, I never use client’s biographies in my […]
CHALLENGES AND EVOLUTIONS IN ORPHANS
Now that Orphans is published and no longer mine alone, I’m feeling a bit lonely. I don’t have my ‘baby’ to tend to anymore (and that truly is a loss after so many months/(years!!) of obsessing,) and I certainly don’t have my next project in mind nor do I have room for it emotionally–that will […]
Nin Andrews interviews Joan Cusack Handler
NIN ANDREWS Orphans is such a powerful and heart-breaking memoir. I thought maybe I’d start the interview by asking for an excerpt from “No Day Was Brighter:” on page 39, beginning on page 39: “I’ve spent my life trying to explain/my mother . . . and ending with “God stealing her mother in every /face […]
Personal Perspectives: Published on Psychology Today
I can count on my one hand the women I know—friends or patients—whose relationship with their mothers is not the root of their most troubled selves. Virtually every woman I know has a complex relationship with her mother. (The same is true with men and their fathers, but it’s mother and daughter that I’m concerned with here.) It was certainly the most contentious relationship in my own life.
“Irish Litany”: Published on Irish American Mom
As you my readers know, I love poetry and all the nuance, paradox and emotion conveyed by the magical manipulation of words. When I heard from Joan, a native of the Bronx, raised in an Irish family, I was captivated by the idea of a memoir in verse.
And so I asked Joan if she would like to write a guest post for my blog, to introduce you to her writing. As a theme for her piece, I suggested she focus on what it means to her to be Irish, and to share her Irish American story.
When I read her submission, I was blown away. As Joan wrote, her answer turned into verse, memories coming to life through familiar names, places and an Irish American backdrop that influenced and illuminated every moment of her childhood.
I am honored to publish Joan’s poem, Irish Litany, here today. I hope her poetic words will resonate with you, as they did with me.
To Each Our Own
This is part an essay I wrote for The Tampa Review titled, “Poems and the Psyche: The Threat of Making Art, One Writer’s Journey.” You can see the full series here. Before ending, (or perhaps the better word is interrupting), this ongoing discussion of voice, which began with a gift from Allen Ginsberg teaching us […]
“I Never Visit My Mother’s Grave” receives honorable mention in New Jersey Poet’s Prize
Part 3 of my poem “I Never Visit My Mother’s Grave” recently received an honorable mention from the New Jersey Poet’s Prize, sponsored by the Journal of New Jersey Poets. To read the full poem, download here.
Booktrib reviews “Confessions…”
Confessions of Joan the Tall the often simultaneously hilarious and poignant, offbeat memoir…
Words as Art Objects
This is part an essay I wrote for The Tampa Review titled, “Poems and the Psyche: The Threat of Making Art, One Writer’s Journey.” You can see the full series here. At heart a visual person as well as a lover of words, in addition to a unique and identifiable voice, what most captivates me […]