Welcome to Strength Reversed!
This newsletter is a "catchall" writing project geared toward a public readership that supports and motivates me as I complete my first book of literary criticism ("‘A Blessing in Disguise:’ Contemplative Pedagogy in Early John Ashbery", August 2025). Strength Reversed collects annotations of my ongoing practice of contemplative nonfiction, an informal reflective mode that complements my practices of poetry (my true vocation) and literary and cultural criticism (genres I’m adding to my retinue vis-a-vis the doctoral dissertation).
The interest that unifies my teaching, writing, and living is deep personal (psychic) transformation. In this spirit, both form and content of Strength Reversed vary widely: there are lyrical personal essays, but there are also crash courses in various humanities threads for nonacademics, as well as primers on therapeutic techniques for immediate application in the reader's inner life. This experimental gathering of essays also works to supplement my writing mentorship service as a free resource, part model, part reference bibliography, for my clients as they develop and deepen their own writing practices. Visit here to book an office hour or 1-on-1 project coaching.
Examples of previous Strength Reversed essay topics include psychedelic drugs, culture, and experience; Silicon Valley and pain as teacher; how to "faith heal" the broken education system; literal & figurative homelessness; expatriation & the psychic wound of American exceptionalism; the absence of art in the elite MFA workshop; astrology and Human Design; critical reviews of self-help & healing books; surrender in Meister Eckhart; Postmodern poetics and Zen
About me: I have written three books of poetry, two travel memoirs, and one novel, and am in the process of completing a doctoral dissertation on poetics and mystical consciousness. I studied creative writing, literature, and humanities at UC Berkeley, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), and UC Santa Cruz. Poets I love include John Ashbery, Rainer Maria Rilke, Zbigniew Herbert, Joanne Kyger, Alice Notley, Fred Moten, Marianne Moore, Lorine Niedecker …(the list goes on). My scholarly interests are poetry and poetics, mysticism and contemplative studies, and liberatory pedagogies. I work in English, German, and classical Latin. Born and raised in California, I live and write in Europe (Germany & Italy).
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Why “Strength Reversed”?
In the realm of Tarot, the Strength card can represent inner fortitude and confidence. In the image of the woman gently opening the lion’s mouth, I like to imagine the transformation of our raw power (including what’s held captive in primal shadow) into ally via the application of compassion and courage. Reversed, the card acts as an antidote to perfectionism, a reminder not to take this quest for self-improvement too seriously. The “self” in “self-transformation” is a paradox: both the delusionally unreal personality of ego, and also the perceptual vehicle through which we access the collective, AKA the divine... Strength gathers in an environment of acceptance and gentle self-correction. Writing is my favorite way to foster such an environment for myself and my community; hence this title for the project.
