Poetic Yeses with Dr. Colleen Windham-Hughes
Pluriverse
By Jessica Easter
Dr. Colleen Windham-Hughes, the co-chair of the Religion Department and longtime professor at Cal Lutheran, has used poetry as a creative outlet for as long as she can remember, but has taken up the practice more regularly in recent years as a grounding exercise.
“Poetry holds space for big feelings and lots of ambiguity,” Dr. W-H (or Dr. “Dub” as she is known) says. “It's helpful for me in truth-telling and truth-receiving and in exercising compassion toward people who are suffering or whom I find challenging.”
Dr. W-H encourages us all to make space to reach into ourselves every now and then to partake in creative practices we may shuffle aside during our academic pursuits.
“Writing poetry is a yes to an inner calling from myself,” she says. “When I pushed it out in favor of flat-out academic work, that was not a better use of my time. Say ‘yes’ to your inner calling—even for 5 minutes at a time. You won't believe it, but little yeses to yourself also help you be more open to yeses to others.”
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