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Marie-Elizabeth Mali: Why We Need Vulnerable Writers · The Daily Writer

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Writer.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer: creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers and teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I am absolutely thrilled to bring you this conversation with my friend Marie Elizabeth Molly.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's a relationship alchemist and speaker who helps individuals and couples deepen love and connection in their relationships.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Drawing on her master's in Chinese medicine and over 20 years of client work, she teaches people how to be authentic instead of shrinking themselves to fit in.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: She has an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and is also the author of one book of poetry called Steady My Gaze, and she's the co-editor with Annie Finch of the anthology Villain Elves.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Her relationship work has been featured in Thrive Global as well as Forbes.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've only recently gotten to know Marie Elizabeth because our mutual friend Trisha Brooke introduced us, and I'm so glad she did because it's been a lot of fun to get to hear Marie Elizabeth and her perspective on vulnerability, relationships, poetry, writing, and so much more.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to have her on the show because it's so easy to get lost in the processes and the details of writing and publishing and all the things that we do as writers.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's honestly really easy to lose the heart of what we do and why we're doing it in the first place.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So in this conversation, Marie Elizabeth reminds us that it's so important to be vulnerable in our writing.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a quality that honestly isn't talked a lot about in the writing world.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad we could bring it back to the forefront here.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: She also shares about her poetry, her writing routines, and so much more.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that you're going to be as moved by this conversation as I was.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So without further delay, here is my conversation with Marie Elizabeth Molly.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Marie Elizabeth, welcome to the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited that we were able to connect and grateful for our mutual friend Trisha Brooke making a connection.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome to the show.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, thank you to Trisha for connecting us.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that's been your experience with her as well.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: It sure has been.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: She's been a wonderful connector and supporter.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: And she's actually my speaker coach.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: So she's been very helpful in that arena for me as well.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you're going to have a speaker coach, she is, in my opinion, the world's number one speaking coach.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So Amen.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely a great win there.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we are here to talk about things that you are working on in relationship to storytelling and writing and really just whatever pops up in conversations.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love having conversations with people.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like the longer that I go on with this podcast, the less interested that I am in like just having a narrow topic and just kind of having a conversation and just seeing where it goes.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's a function of my age, or maybe I'm just forgetting things, or whatever it is.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe maybe this old introvert can actually become a people person one of these days.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Introverts can change.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who would have thought?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they can get comfortable talking to people.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start out with this.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Give us a general overview of what types of writing that you do.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd also love to hear your definition of what a relationship alchemist is, which is what you refer to yourself as.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I specifically did not like Google that or do any research into like on your website for that because I wanted to stay curious about it.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So give us a little bit of your of your background and what kind of writing you do and your work.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my first love is poetry.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I got an MFA in poetry a while back.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I spent 10 years really, really immersed in the study and writing of poetry between bookended by my prior work as an acupuncturist and massage therapist and also life coach.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: I got trained as a life coach before I turned 100% toward poetry.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: And after that 10 years, I actually returned to coaching and but more specifically coaching around people's relationships and how they show up in their relationships and how to alchemize the barriers to love that many of us have, all our all our habits and patterns and the ways that we might block or avoid intimacy.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I look at the work of relationship as alchemy, as as turning what might feel like lead into relationship gold.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: How do you take the the difficult parts of relationship and actually interact with them and relate to them in such a way that you grow closer to one another, which is the gold, uh, rather than getting driven apart.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so um my work has evolved to become relationship alchemy because I really help people with how they show up in their relationship to others and with themselves as well.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: And my love of poetry and writing continues to hum along right next to it.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so I'm currently putting together a manuscript for a manuscript review.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: One of my favorite poets, Mark Dhody, offered manuscript reviews this summer.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so I jumped on that and and am deeply immersed, getting up at you know, five or six in the morning to spend an hour or two just going through these very discombobulated and disastrous, uh not organized folders of poetry over the last 10 years since my book came out, uh, and and pulling and culling and revising and kind of just being immersed in the word again, which feels so great.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: And the other type of writing I do is uh I tell I write stories and tell stories related to relationships.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I write articles about relationships for Forbes and other publications and for my own blog on Medium.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, so that's a way that I find people can connect very much with the work is by reading a story.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think is the thread that weaves all of your work together?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think this is a question I've ever ever actually asked anybody before, but it it seems to me like in our lives there are certain thread threads or storylines, or through lines, I guess is what I the term I would use that really run through everything we do, and that has that can have different expressions and different types of work.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Are there specific through lines or any certain threads that you feel like run through all of your work?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Poetry, different types of writing, relationship coaching.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um what what's the what's the thing in your heart or in or in your impulse or your desire that ties all of those things together?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: What a gorgeous question.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: I love this question.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: So the through line for me is a desire to connect at a deep level.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: I want to build a world where connection is valued as highly as production.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: And ever since I was a teenager, I began reading Zen when I was like 15 and I got, I wasn't practicing, I didn't start meditating until my 20s.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I've been meditating for like 30 years.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: But even as a teenager, super interested in theater and performance at that time.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was a dancer and I sang.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: The I had an experience when I was 17 at a theater camp in the summer where I sang this very sad song in the final show.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we each had a solo in the final show.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: And and a friend from another program came up afterwards.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: He was standing with his mother and he said, Oh my God, you made me cry.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: I was so embarrassed.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Your song was so sad, it made me cry.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: I really felt it.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I was so embarrassed because I cried in front of my mother, you know.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: And and it hit me.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: I had this epiphany in that moment about the power of art to bring us out of our daily experience and feel something, right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because many of us just kind of autopilot our way through the day.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: We do.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: And we're not necessarily awake to life or alive to life.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: We're just kind of going through the motions.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And art is this incredible medium by which we can pull ourselves out of our daily numbness into feeling, and then hopefully be returned to our lives with a larger perspective, a different insight, a little more awakeness amid the monotony, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had this revelation at 17 that I'm I'm here to do that.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here to pull people out of their mundanity into a deeper experience of themselves, of the world, of life, of love, of connection, and every single thing I've done to since then as a massage therapist, acupuncturist, poet, relationship coach, speaker, writer of articles and stories, is with that singular purpose.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, and I'm I want to dive into your poetry in just a second because I'm really fascinated by that.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think I've ever talked to anyone on this podcast about poetry at length, or anyone who has your extent of experience and training with it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm super curious about that.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I also, but I want to take a little tiny side jog if I can.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So super quick story.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: About 10 years ago, I had some severe lower back problems, um, like with herniated discs and all that stuff, and went to the chiropractor and nothing was really helping until I got acupuncture.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it was almost like like a like a wizardly magical kind of thing because it just worked so well.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is it because you know, you're all about connection and relationship.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: What is it about acupuncture specifically that that helps that can be so helpful to people?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know this is like kind of a medical question.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't a medical podcast, but I'm really curious what what is it about acupuncture specifically that does something that other forms of of therapy or medicine would not be able to do, as far as I guess nerves or physiology or whatever else.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Another gorgeous question.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna tie it back because I actually my background in Chinese medicine is very related to how I approach relationships.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I guess that's really what my question is.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I heard that.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so acupuncture and Chinese medicine in general.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: So Chinese medicine has two branches, acupuncture and herbology, right?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I did practice both.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Not everyone is trained in both, but I was.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: And in Chinese medicine, in contrast to allopathic or what we call Western medicine, the focus is on treating not only the symptom, but primarily what's called the terrain, the the underlying terrain of the body.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: So all the symptoms are considered in relation to the whole.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas in Western medicine, the focus is very much on treating symptoms.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, very true.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: And and effectively so, like you get hit by a car, go to the doctor, like don't go to the acupuncturist.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, I'm serious.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's times for each.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: And because Chinese medicine has this deeper focus on the terrain and the energetics of how is energy moving in the body overall, how is the body functioning in terms of heat and cold, damp and dry, uh excess deficient, all the uh various ways that the body can be in alignment with itself and out of alignment?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because Chinese medicine takes into consideration all of that, plus the way energy moves in the meridians, it's often effective where other modalities are not, because it's not only looking at the back pain.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's look because back pain can have five different reasons.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: So you can either just take an aspirin for back pain, or you can look at is this back pain happening because there's too much cold in, you know, because your kidneys are weak?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is it happening because uh there's heat?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, is it happening because maybe there's some structural muscular thing that's causing it?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's so many different reasons it could be happening.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: So Chinese medicine just has a much more nuanced level of diagnosis than many other modalities do, you know, developed over 4,000 years.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: So fast forward to relationships, I different other my approach is different than other relationship coaches because I look at the terrain.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: There's also an underlying belief in Chinese medicine that the that the body is supremely intelligent.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: So when barriers are removed to the body doing what it knows how to do, it will fix things.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel that way about love.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Love is supremely intelligent.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: And when barriers are removed to its full expression because we learn how to communicate better and we uh stop reacting, you know, we learn to catch our reaction that we picked up from watching our parents react a certain way, you know, the stuff that's not even totally ours.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: When we remove the barriers to love's full expression, it knows what to do.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: We know how to connect.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: We just don't do it a lot because of all the barriers, distractedness, you know, all the racial, I mean, all the stuff that tends to get in the way that are just filters that block love.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so my work is very much about freeing the intelligence that exists within a relationship between two people to do its thing by handling the patterns that are blocking things.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like and I hope that I express this correctly.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm probably not going to because I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it seems like in Western culture, there is I'm thinking of like our Protestant work ethic, you know, generally, that is very much a part of American culture, which is based on the idea of you have to keep doing more and more and more and more.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's very much part of the like entrepreneur hustle business culture as well.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it doesn't matter how much you do, there's always something lacking.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to keep doing more, as opposed to the opposite viewpoint, which is what you're talking about, at least as I'm hearing you, which is it's not necessarily so much of you've got to do more all the time.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's also a matter of getting the barriers and obstacles out of the way because love and good things naturally happen in your in your life when you just get the bad things out of the way, as opposed to constantly feeling like you've got to do more and more and more.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost, I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say, but you've really spurred my thinking about all this.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it it ties back to being a part of a capitalistic culture where we're taught we have to buy things to feel whole.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that we are not whole and complete as we are, that we are somehow deficient.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: And and we live in a we swim in a soup of of lack, you know, of messages that tell us like you got to get this thing to plump your lips and you got to get this thing to round your ass, or what you know, excuse me.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: I hope I can say ass on your podcast.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but um, too late.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, uh, you know, we live in these messages all the time that we are not enough as we are, because it makes us then want to buy solutions to fix that.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so there it there's a reason why it's that way.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so um then what happens as a result, as I see it, is we start interacting with each other in these compensatory ways because we're trying to get validation that we're okay, and when we start interacting in these ways where we're trying to get validation that we're okay, it becomes transactional and connection, true connection gets diminished.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now, how this applies to writing is I mean, I know for me, I spent years, you know, grabbing the next workshop, grabbing the next, oh, I want to study with this one, study with that one, right?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: And and and I'm a I'm an acquisitive kind of learner.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: I like I love to acquire more knowledge.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's just exciting to me and and it's part of what turns me on.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that about myself.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a place where it's it spills over into the shadow, which is not believing that I actually have the goods and to you know to offer.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I keep consuming instead of actually making the thing I'm here to make, right?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: So so I'm always dancing that edge of consumption in myself.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: But as a writer, it's like, can you carve out?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: There is a carving of space that's necessary to be able to get quiet enough to find the words.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you're not just regurgitating all the crap you're reading, you know, but you're actually finding something original that's true to you.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's also kind of an amalgamation, probably, of everything you've heard, but that's fine.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we all distill everything in our own way.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I see it akin to that kind of carving the space, making the room, the willingness to slow down and say, Oh, I'm just gonna be with this piece of writing right now, even though I could, there's 15 other things that I could go be with.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like that's the work.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Does that especially apply to poetry?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've not I've written some poetry in my life, not really very much.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm mostly speaking out of ignorance here, uh, which I seem to do a lot in my life.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there really is very long that I know.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's I know a lot about a very, very small number of things, and I know a little bit about a lot of things.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um but does that apply to poetry in the sense of that is a type of writing or an art form that it's especially important for you to carve out some mental and emotional space for, as opposed to like a for example, when I'm doing client work.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this afternoon I've got to write like a 2000-word article for a client.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, I outline and I sit down and I do it, I can do a draft in about an hour or an hour and a half.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty fast with that.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's so that's like a very different type of writing than poetry, which seems that's a whole different modality of thinking and feeling and being, I would assume.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: I find for me that is the case, but even when I'm writing uh an article or a social media post or writing a story that I'm gonna share somewhere, I still have a kind of pre-writing routine or or a kind of mental puttering that gets me in the space.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: Does that do you do you do that too?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a kind of mental putter and like I get my cup of tea and I oh yeah have my spot and I, you know, maybe and and if I'm going to write poetry, often I'll read some poems just to get some music into my ear before some music and some imagery into my ears before I start writing.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes that's part of it, sometimes it isn't.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I already have an image that I saw or an or a uh an event that happened that will catalyze a poem or a phrase I heard that'll catalyze a poem.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: But often, often I'm kind of reading to get in the zone.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I find if I'm writing an article or a story, I don't need to read to get into that zone.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: I just need to sit down.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Can you share a bit about what is the function of poetry and society?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And here's here's why I'm asking that question is because with other types of writing, and we look at novels as typically an escape.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, it depends on the type of novel, but generally a novel is to draw us into a story to help us escape our own lives to experience the action, romance, or whatever.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um business books and nonfiction is typically designed to help us solve a problem of some kind.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Biography, sort of like fiction, it's getting into helping us to get into a person's story so we can learn from it.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is what is culturally what would you say the function of poetry is?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is it really designed to accomplish in our hearts and in our lives?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Connection.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: To me, it's it's about stepping out of the regular, mundane daily life and having an experience.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, a a poem.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Emily Dickinson said, you know, I know it's a great poem when it blows off the top of my head.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm I'm trying I'm uh what's the word paraphrasing, but you know, you know you're reading a good poem when you feel something.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: And in yeah, sure, some people are poets for the pure intellectual exercise of it, and it's not about emotion, and that's fine.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's not the kind of poet I am.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: I go to poetry to feel.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And to connect to another living, breathing human who's filtering the world in this way through language and imagery and contemplation.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it slows me down and connects me to feeling, to life.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like that's that's the role.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: John F.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: Kennedy, I'm really tempted to try to find this quote, which is always terrible when you're trying to have a conversation with someone.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I recently uh reposted a memory that I posted many years ago that uh John F.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Kennedy said, it was a beautiful thing he said about poetry.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm looking for this quote right now.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and if you have a question to ask in the meantime, I will listen.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, my my next question.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I found it.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, hang on, I found it.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so this is John F.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: Kennedy.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: When power leads a man toward arrogancy, poetry reminds him of his limitations.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: When power power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: For art establishes the basic human truths, which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard that before.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is beautiful.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm gonna write that write that down.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'll email it to you.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, please do, because um probably I'll end up using that on my one of my daily episodes on my podcast.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Those weekday episodes are little short, short episodes.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Typically they're like 300 words or so, like a little meditation for writers.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I always include those always start out with a quote.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I I have a quote that I is from a writer or some artist or something, and then I just kind of riff on that a little bit and always include it in the meditation.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's beautiful.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm totally going to use that.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, great.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: So my next question is who are some of your favorite poets and what is it about their poetry that that hits you so hard?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Mark Dody, the the one who's offering manuscript reviews this summer to a few people, um, he's one of my favorite poets.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: He uh is a queer poet.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, he won the National Book Award in 2008.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: And his poems tend to be these branching long, narrative, reflective, heavily imagistic uh experiences.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, a poem, a Mark Dhody poem is an experience.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I just fell in love with his use of language, his use of imagery, the way his mind moves.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: I especially love poems where I can see the poet's mind move in the lines.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, sometimes it's leaping, sometimes it's linear, but I just he just has a beautiful mind and a beautiful way of observing the world.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like his his depth of observation and his depth of heart, and his book Atlantis, which was written really about the height of the AIDS crisis and the loss of his lover at the time, Wally, is one of the most gorgeous, transcendent, heartbreaking books uh in my library.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one poet I love.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um Ada Limon is another poet I love.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh she she too has this giant heart that just comes through her words and her images are gorgeous and sonically, her poems are beautiful.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um I just adore, she's she's yeah, I just adore her.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Let's see.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh god, there's so many poets I love.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Ah uh um who else comes to mind who really I'm gonna look at myself actually right now.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yes, Kim Adenizio is another poet I adore.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: She she has a very wry uh voice and bold and metaphorically powerful, like Sharon Olds as well.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Her metaphor, Sharon Old's metaphors are off the chain.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like nobody writes metaphor like Sharon Old's.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, these are all my sort of like poetry moms.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and I love Patricia Smith.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: So Patricia Smith, I know from back in the day in New York, and she her poems are incredible sonically, topically.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: She's she has uh an incredible mastery of form and free verse.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: She was a performance poet as well as writing very formal poems, and her performance is also very powerful.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: She's someone I go to to look at this marriage of the poem and the reading of the poem.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: How do you how do you transmit the poem powerfully?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because both matter.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, to academics, maybe the performance doesn't matter as much, but I have a bit of a performance background, so performance does matter to me.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you've been hanging out with Trisha Brooks, so obviously performance is clearly when you hang out with Trisha.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the performance is going to be a part of the package for sure.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I used to be married to one of the world's best performance poets, too.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: So there's that.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do you find that are there some poets who are really good on paper, but as far as performing it, they're not so good.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like are the those in my mind, those are those skill sets are different enough to where just because you're good at one doesn't necessarily mean you can be good with the other.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: It it uh a po a poem can die in performance.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've never heard of put that way like that.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I mean, sometimes I I've felt that way sometimes, like performance can be where a poetry poem goes to die.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: But it it really depends also on the audience you're reading for.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I find that academic audiences are less uh interested in the performance of the poem.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's less important.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, I've heard academics say uh that poet that that performing a poem is distracting, you know.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: But if you listen to the the generations before us, I mean, if you listen to uh Ann Sexton, I was just reading her this morning and I couldn't get her name.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Ann Sexton, if you listen to Ann Sexton, or you listen to Robert Lowell, or you listen to any of that generation before this generation, they all performed their poems.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And and some of it was overwrought.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm not I'm not talking about the kind of poem cadence of like, this is a poem that I am reading, and every word is important.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm not talking about that kind of pomposity, you know, I'm just talking about putting your energy behind your words so you transmit something.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there's also been something, I think on a broader scale, there's been something that's that's been lost.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I would say the past few decades in American culture in terms of leaders.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And for some reason, what you were talking about made me think of Abraham Lincoln, even though he wasn't really a poet, um, obviously a very gifted speaker.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: You think of people like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, um, Teddy Roosevelt, you know, and at least in terms of American presidents, people who were really great orators.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Barack Obama.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, absolutely.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking with my wife and I had a fun a funny conversation yesterday.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, of course, my and my main job now is business ghostwriting.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we we were talking about that, and and I had mentioned that that Obama actually wrote his book that came out last year.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which is really unusual for a syllogist.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: Which I listened to.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, which I actually listened to because I love to hear him speak.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it we were just laughing because it's it's pretty well known that Michelle Obama used a ghostwriter for her book.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh both of them are really, really well done.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, Barack's gifts, he's obviously an amazingly gifted communicator, orator, writer, and so forth.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so it we just kind of had a laugh about that, then it was so unusual that he actually wrote his book.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's obviously very well known and well loved and all that.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we have a lot study.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: It does seem pretty unusual.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: I it feels like very few people at that level actually write their own books.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so my wife used to work at Barnes and Noble, and so she was just she was like, Now I know all the dirty little secrets, you know, stuffing in into ghostwriting the last couple of years.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I'm like, Yeah, yeah, and all those blurbs you see in books, those people didn't write those either.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're all written by some people mostly.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: My blurbs are real, yes.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's well, that's kind of unusual, yeah.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: To be honest with you, so yeah, that's unfortunate.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I I know, I I know there's a practice of like, oh, would you just write it for me and then I'll put my, you know, I'll look at it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's sad though.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which I mean specifically with blurbs.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: I just believe in actually blurbing a book that you've actually read, you know.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a really common practice is uh in fact, I had somebody tell me this.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm coming out with my next book in a few months, and I asked a friend of mine, hey, would you do a blurb for it?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Why don't you just send me the blurb and then I'll basically let you know if it's okay, which is super common.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm and I'm cool with that.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but there definitely is a culture of you know, ghostwriting, and and you always just kind of go, okay, did they actually write that or didn't they?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or how does that work?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um we writers rule the world basically.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: We we do, and but uh it's dawning, it's hitting me how it's strange that the that this vehicle that was meant to inspire trust, you know, the the blurb is there to inspire trust in the buyer that they want to buy this book, yeah, and it's good.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: That the very thing that's meant to do that is fake.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's really sad.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess it depends on how you look at it.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily look at it as fake, I look at it as I crafted the words, they they said yay or nay.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: They many times will switch things around, and there's kind of a fine line there, I guess.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: To some degree.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's been a trend I've noticed with poetry books in recent years, um, of not even having a blurb on the back anymore.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like the book that just won the Pulitzer, Pulitzer, however you like to pronounce it.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Natalie Diaz uh won the Pulitzer with her book, uh post-colonial love poem.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a stunning book.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: She's another poet I go to for language.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: She's a Native American poet who's just her language and uh subject and music.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: The music in her work is stunning.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And she doesn't have a blurb on the back of her book, it just has an excerpt of a poem instead.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I would assume that poetry is a field where I would assume there's very little, if any, ghostwriting going on.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that would be sort of very antithetical to the whole what it's all about.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't I don't know of that.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if the if it's happening, I'm not aware of it.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I would hope not.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, with with business books and other kinds of things, I guess, I guess I just think in terms of how authentic does it does, I mean, it all needs to be authentic, I guess.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: But poetry is something that is so directly from somebody's heart and soul that I would feel cheated if I knew that poetry would have been ghostwritten, you know what I mean?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely agreed.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Marie Elizabeth, this has been an absolute blast.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have so much, so many cool things to talk about.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have to plan a follow-up at some point.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one thing I do want to ask for sure is how can people get in touch with you and work with you?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're doing relationship coaching, you've got poetry out there, you're doing all kinds of cool stuff.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: How can people find out more about all this cool stuff?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the best place to go is my website, which is relationshipalchemy.com.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: And my creative work is that that's for my work work.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then my creative work is housed at memolly.com, which is my initials, Marie Elizabeth, M E, and then my last name, Molly, M A L I.com.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so at memolly.com, you'll find sample poems, uh, links to my books, uh, a link to my photo website because I'm also an underwater photographer.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um is there anything that you don't do?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't uh I don't ride motorcycles.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so uh so my creative work is over there on mamali.com.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're interested in learning more about how I work with relationships, relationshipalchemy.com is where you'll find um more information about I have some small group programs for women, uh and really women, trans women, non-binary folks who are comfortable in sp in female-centric spaces.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I also work privately with people of all genders and I work with couples of all kinds of couples, uh, no matter the mix, um, queer, straight, everything in between.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: So um that is how you find out more about that.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: And and I have some videos on YouTube about relationship, follow me on social media for tips and stories.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: I do have a quiz as well.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're interested in learning more about how you show up in relationship, I've identified four stages of consciousness people tend to be in around their relationships with themselves, with others, just how they show up.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so my quiz is found on the homepage of my website and it's titled uh it just flew out of my head.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: What's your relationship style?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a quick quiz to assess where you tend to live and how you relate.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: And in the follow-up materials, you'll receive tips and suggestions for how to expand your capacity to relate in a more conscious way and in a more uh empowered way.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I suggest if anyone's interested in that, that you go take that quiz and get the follow-up resources and start, you know, really examining and working and playing with really how do I show up in my power?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: How do I show up more skillfully and more available and more open to love and play and joy in my life and in my relationships?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this has been an absolute blast.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've loved hearing about your poetry and your relationship work and underwater photography, which is really cool.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I've appreciated you being on the show today.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks again.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a blast and uh can't wait to do this again.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: What a great conversation.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: I so appreciate your questions.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Marie Elizabeth.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had a blast talking with her, and as you can hear, she is a relationship expert and she is full of wisdom and some really, really awesome insights.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: I would say my biggest takeaway from this interview is that we shouldn't be afraid to be vulnerable.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people appreciate vulnerability.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: You might be the person who's writing books or who has articles, you know, on big websites.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you might be the person behind the podcast mic or on a stage somewhere.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really easy when we're in those situations to feel like, oh, you know, we're kind of somebody.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're like the podcaster, we're the author, and we're the speaker and all those kinds of things.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, at the end of the day, we're all just kind of human.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: We all put our pants on one leg at a time, as we say here in the Midwest.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we're all just flawed humans trying to kind of make our way in the world.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's important to recognize that and just to know it's okay to be vulnerable.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to not be perfect.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it necessarily means we've got to air our dirty laundry all the time and those kinds of things.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly we don't want to do anything that's inappropriate or that makes people uncomfortable or, you know, doesn't fit the context of where we're trying to communicate.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: But we still are human.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to challenge you to share a struggle or a failure of yours in some form or fashion in the next week or two.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's through writing, maybe it's on a podcast, maybe it's on social media.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and I dare you to share something that you struggle with or some area where you failed.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people will really appreciate that and relate to it.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this episode has been a blast.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to connect with Marie Elizabeth at her site, which is relationshipalchemy.com.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that link, as well as all her other social links and so forth, will be in the show notes.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take a moment to let you know about our daily writer membership community.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the very best ways to develop better habits and impact more people's lives with your writing is to spend time around other successful writers.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're tired of feeling isolated and chasing success on your own, then I know you're gonna love the Daily Writer community.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: For years, I searched for the kind of writing community that I would want to join, but I can never find what I wanted, so I created my own.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the features include weekly writing sprints, monthly community calls, book discussions, calls with guest experts, and much more.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: For more info, you can visit dailywriterlife.comslash community.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.