Sing Me the Creation

Paul Matthews, poet and teacher of Spacial Dynamics(R), is the director of Language Alive--the creative writing course at Emerson College. His publications include Sing Me the Creation (Hawthorn Press) and The Ground that Love Seeks (Five Seasons Press). He has traveled widely with his work, giving poetry readings and talks and leading workshops in the U.K., Germany, Sweden, the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia. He recently founded "Poetry Otherwise" to encourage poetry in communities. Robert Sardello, PhD, is cofounder (with Cheryl Sanders-Sardello, PhD, in 1992) of the School of Spiritual Psychology. At the University of Dallas, he served as chair of the Department of Psychology, head of the Institute of Philosophic Studies, and graduate dean. He is also cofounder and a faculty member of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, as well as author of more than 200 articles in scholarly journals and cultural publications, and is a former faculty member of the Chalice of Repose Project in Missoula, Montana. Having developed spiritual psychology based in archetypal psychology, phenomenology, and the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner from more than thirty-five years of research in this discipline, as well as holding positions in two universities, Dr. Sardello is now an independent teacher and scholar, teaching all over the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., as well as the Czech Republic, the Philippines, and Australia. He is a consultant to many educational and cultural institutions and a dissertation adviser at numerous academic institutions. He is author of several books, including Facing the World with Soul; Love and the World; Freeing the Soul from Fear; The Power of Soul: Living the Twelve Virtues. and Silence.

Part 1 A personal introduction: how this book came to be written; renewing the ancient hearth; inhibitions; permissions; playing; how to use this book; suggestions for group practical; the structure of this book; the four temperaments; earth, water, air and fire; image, sound, movement; the logos. Part 2 The statement: statement; epiphanies; memory; paintings and photographs; fantasy; wondrous sight; lying; paradox; dreaming; naming (1); definition and characterization (1); characterization through comparison; simile; synaesthesia; blazoning metaphor personification language as picture or sculpture; uttering the inner; an ancient battle; imagination; our own names. Part 3 The question: question; wondering; response ability; conversation; jeopardy; letters; the divided gamer; bragging; contraries; riddles; jokes; sacred dialogue; oracles; festivals. Part 4 The exclamation: exclamation; noises; new languages; nonsense; alliteration; rhyme; tongue twisters; tongue assisters; naming (2); sound sense; vowels; consonants; dictionary; translation; characterization. Part 5 The command: command; magic;fire; movement;grammar and gymnastics; what is a sentence? verse; alliterative verse; motion and emotion; rhythm; meter; verse and universe; prose; personal style; sentenced by sentences? chance; the stream of consciousness; free verse. Part 6 The hearth: story, fable, tall stories, dream, fairy tale, the creation story, before the beginning; in the beginning; the act of creation; the four elements; ending where we began. The quintessence.