POET . LAUREATE . WRITER . HEALER
an introduction to Vilma's work
2019
I have always loved words.
I love the beauty of words.
I love playing with words to find fresh metaphors, new combinations, original images.
I respect the power of words, to wound, and to heal.
As a therapist I hoped my words would help heal that which was wounded, bring together that which was scattered, soothe that which was painful.
As a poet I strive to express my experiences, my observations, and my communications as truthfully and courageously as I can, in as fresh and beautiful ways as I can, hoping to lessen the confusions and mendacities heaped upon us in this world.
Each of us is the center of our world, but it is lonely there. We step into the larger world through connection, and there are many ways to do that: I call them music, words, and the dance.
Music is the tone of our words, the qualities of voice whether we speak or not. Our music can be welcoming and soothing, or it can be ear-shattering and distancing.
The dance is our body language: everything from our facial expression to the way we hold ourselves and how we make contact with others. Hugging and punching are opposite forms of dance.
Words come last developmentally, and are the civilized aspect of our interactions. In our literate societies we have made words our most important tools, though that may turn out to be our collective foolishness. Therefore, I think it important that we pay attention to how we use, or might be misusing, language. As a healer and as a poet this has been my purpose, my challenge, my goal: to use words to heal and to make the world a little more pleasant to be in.
Vilma Ginzberg
Word-Love & Love-Words
words of kindness
Praise & Recognition
“If you want to know a real human being, read these poems. If you want to walk with Vilma Ginzberg, talk with her, let her take you, barefoot, across her fields and through her wooded hills into the land of her experience, know that you might well throw away your disguises and wear your true face.”
Clare Morris, author of
Love Poems to the City
"Here is a poet in top form, full of strength and courage. And what range!
Vilma’s poems brim with joy from life’s bounties, but also burn with outrage at cruelty and injustice. Her voice is sensitive, adoring, muscular, attacking. Her journey becomes our own, and we are the richer for it."
David Beckman, author of
Under Pegasus, Becoming Walt Whitman
"As always, Vilma puts into words that which is otherwise subliminal. Her clarity and good humor invite my own unrealized thoughts or musings to emerge, and I find myself nodding, smiling and appreciating the gift of deeper intimacy with myself."
Annelisa MacBean,
Ph.D. psychologist, executive coach