Customer Reviews

Being True to Life: Poetic Paths to Personal Growth

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Writing is discovery, and psychotherapist David Richo affirms this with his wonderful new book. I believe poetry is the written form that brings us closest to the unconscious in us, and it can be as revealing as our dreams. I have taken Richo's suggestion and begun writing my journal in poetry-length lines.

Richo says, "We also want to find out what our own inner self wants to reveal to us in the midst of the clatter of the world. This takes letting go of our manic lifestyle long enough to pause and be silent so that we can hear the chords of our own being above the cacophony of our distracting and seductive world." And he says, "Poetry is too intimate to be nailed down in strictly linear terms. Reading a poem is more like comprehending a multifaceted totality all at once than like following logical steps to a single conclusion. It is more like entering spirals of possibilities than like walking a straight line to a single destination."

As I read this book, I encountered over and over things that resonated with me-"spirals of possibilities" not the least of them. (My new business blog is called "Spiraling," and I use a nautilus as a sort of logo.) Imagine my surprise when I visited Richo's website ([...]/) and found a free downloadable book with a nautilus as the cover illustration! Positively synchronistic.

This book is a gem for anyone who writes poetry, who wants to write poetry, or who just wants to better understand the self. Richo provides solid guidance and writing and meditation (visualization) exercises that will help the reader uncover the poem that wants to write itself in the service of healing.

(from [...], 12/21/09)

A moving exploration of poetry's healing capacities, offering tools and insight to employ poetry's capacities to help us uncover, process, and release childhood wounds as well as to find inspiration and meaning in everyday life. As a primary healthcare physician and having spent the last 20 years dedicated to exploring and sharing poetry as a profoundly healing art (which does not receive its due praise in modern times)--I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in taking a deeper plunge into holistic healing...engaging your own creative juices to move beyond where the techniques of medicine can go no further. Enjoy this journey by a most competent, grounded, and inspirational author David Richo.

--Jack A. Weber, L.Ac., Dipl. A.C.
founder of[...]