Dale M. Kushner

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Harriet Chen

Dale M. Kushner

Madison writer Dale M. Kushner’s debut book of poetry, simply and elegantly titled M, celebrates the heroic dimensions of women’s lives and includes the voices of Biblical figures like the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and Eve. All of the poems, Kushner says, “emerged out of lived experience, empathy and imagination." She also writes fiction, essays and a monthly online column for Psychology Today. Kushner, who has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and received the Wisconsin Arts Board Grant in the Literary Arts, will be in conversation with Madison’s mindfulness master Mare Chapman.

media release: Dale M. Kushner’s new collection M testifies to the heroic dimensions of women’s lives. The urgent voices in these poems, including Mary Magdalene, Eve, the Virgin Mary, and women experiencing violence across centuries and continents, are bearers of the sacred into the profane world of history—of men and war. Addressing both personal and collective struggles through a series of dramatic monologues, the speakers explore both radical and tender moments that break through the myths perpetuated in the name of the feminine. Ultimately, these poems become an enduring map of how resilience is forged from suffering and how desire, loss, and struggle are the spiritual path to transformation.

About the Poet

Dale M. Kushner grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey on a street that was once an orchard and has never lost her affection for trees and other natural wonders. Her novels, poetry, and essays bear witness to the “unspoken” and “unsayable” in our lives, to the silenced voices of women, and the aching questions of identity, belonging, and vulnerability. She views literature as a bridge to empathy that explores the dimensionality of what it means to be human and to endure love and loss.

Her study abroad at the C. G. Jung Institute in Switzerland and depth psychology inform her writing, including Transcending the Past her popular monthly online column for Psychology Today. M is Ms. Kushner’s debut collection of poetry. Her first novel The Conditions of Love was published by Grand Central (2013) and was nominated for the Texas Library Association’s Lariat Award for Outstanding Adult Fiction. She recently completed her second novel with the working title The Lie of Forgetting.

Dale has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, received the Wisconsin Arts Board Grant in the Literary Arts, and has been honored by fellowships to the Wurlitzer Foundation, The Ragdale Foundation, and the Fetzer Institute. Dale was a finalist for the May Swenson Poetry Award, The Prairie Schooner Book Competition and the Dorset Prize from Tupelo Press among others.

Dale’s widely regarded writings on the divine feminine, creativity, and intergenerational trauma are published in anthologies and collected works. Her essay on Mary Magdalene appears in the anthology Strange Attractors: Lives Changed by Chance, edited by Edie Meidav and Emmalie Dropkin, University of Massachusetts Press. Her in-depth article on Carl Jung, “In Extremis: Jung’s Descent into the Language of the Self” appears in Jung’s Red Book For Our Time: Searching for Soul Under Postmodern Conditions, Volume 4 (2020) edited by Murray Stein and Thomas Arzt, Chiron Publications. She teaches workshops that reflect her scholarship in Buddhism, depth psychology, spirituality, and the creative process.

About the Moderator

From Mare Chapman: "I’ve always been interested in what makes us “tick”: discovering what makes us crazy and what makes us well and truly happy. Graduating from Wayne State University with a B.S. in Occupational Therapy, I first worked in a state psychiatric hospital.  I also taught courses in psychiatric O.T. at Wayne State University and then at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. From there I went on to be the founding director of Yahara House, a community program for adults with serious mental illness. Then in 1982, feeling a strong need to be free of the bureaucracy, I began a private practice with Lives Unlimited. I later earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Vermont College of Norwich University, focusing on women’s psychology and meditation. My style has been greatly influenced by many years of study with Dawna Markova and Andy Bryner, by Buddhist philosophy and teachers, and by over 24 years of practicing Insight Meditation, which cultivates mindfulness."