Poetry – Gail Sher Dharma Talks

My biggest responsibility to myself as a poet is to remain in the realm of the unknown. I don’t write what I already know… My writing arises, and I am constantly surprised by it.

— Gail Sher, Poetry, Zen and the Linguistic Unconscious

Gail Sher Poetry & Poetics, 1980-2020, is an impressive testament to Gail Sher’s ongoing engagement with poetry as a practice of attention. It also emphatically reinforces her contributions to, on the one hand, a long tradition of American writing, especially from the West Coast, that is steeped in East Asian philosophy and poetic forms, and, on the other, an equally rich history of experimental writing by women.

— James Maynard, Curator, The Poetry Collection, University at Buffalo (SUNY)

Test text Writing saved my life. Before I found writing I had exhausted all the other ways of being in the world that I knew about. But, as with anything that one makes entirely one’s own, I had to reinvent writing. I had to unravel everything I had been taught and wind it back up again, my way. Writing saved my life. Before I found writing I had exhausted all the other ways of being in the world that I knew about. But, as with anything that one makes entirely one’s own, I had to reinvent writing. I had to unravel everything I had been taught and wind it back up again, my way.

Writing saved my life. Before I found writing I had exhausted all the other ways of being in the world that I knew about. But, as with anything that one makes entirely one’s own, I had to reinvent writing. I had to unravel everything I had been taught and wind it back up again, my way. Writing saved my life. Before I found writing I had exhausted all the other ways of being in the world that I knew about. But, as with anything that one makes entirely one’s own, I had to reinvent writing. I had to unravel everything I had been taught and wind it back up again, my way.