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# Marsha Pincus

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://marshapincus.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [Her Own Terms](https://marshapincus.com/creative-writing/her-own-terms/)
- [Knitting Myself Anew](https://marshapincus.com/2009/06/knitting-myself-anew/) - I can tell you about myself through my knitting -- stitching together pieces of myself as I would an afghan or sweater. If you were to examine all of the garments I have created, you would know me. Each scarf, mitten, vest of slipper is a chapter in the complex novel of my life. We
- [The Truth at Thirteen](https://marshapincus.com/2013/02/the-truth-at-thirteen/) - The notice came through in my Facebook notifications. “Dave Weisbord has tagged a photo of you.” It didn’t take long for the “likes” to begin, followed by the comments. You can travel the entire globe, move to a city thousands of miles away, make friends with people of every age
- [My Recent Journeys: Making Memories Through Time and Space](https://marshapincus.com/2014/11/my-recent-journeys-making-memories-through-time-and-space/) - In the room the memories come and go
- [Making Amends: Ringing the Bells That Still Can Ring](https://marshapincus.com/2010/12/making-amends-ringing-the-bells-that-still-can-ring/) - Amends, he wrote. Please let me make amends to you. My program requires it. The 9th step says that we must make direct amends to people we have harmed except where to do so would injure them or others. I didn’t understand, though later I would spend hours upon hours googling AA sites learning all
- [Teshuvah - [Re] turning to Ourselves](https://marshapincus.com/2010/09/teshuvah-re-turning-to-ourselves/) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5YxAcsQgu0 In the Jewish calendar, it is the year 5774. This is a fact but I no longer remember (if I ever did know) when the counting started nor the significance of year one, though I know the months of the year have something to do with the moon. Today is also one of
- [How to Love a Ghost:  Making Peace with my Long Gone Father](https://marshapincus.com/2015/02/how-to-love-a-ghost-making-peace-with-my-long-gone-father/) - When you are estranged from your father, every day is Father's Day. Father’s Day is always rough for people who have had difficult relationships with their fathers. But this year was particularly difficult for me because of Facebook. First, I posted my daily haiku as part of a challenge I had take on January
- [Watching the Superbowl: Deflated Balls and Domestic Violence](https://marshapincus.com/2015/02/watching-the-superbowl-deflated-balls-and-domestic-violence/) - There was a very special commercial sponsored by the NFL during the Superbowl XLIX. It was a public service announcement against domestic violence. It was a pretty chilling spot and it was very effective too. Only thing is, not that many people saw it. It aired right before the halftime show, immediately following Seattle's touchdown
- [Persephone's Return](https://marshapincus.com/2015/06/persephones-return/) - You will ask: Did she go willingly or was she taken? The story goes, at least the one version we’ve all heard, the one we tell and retell, that she was kidnapped… that the maiden Persephone was out in a field picking flowers, narcissus blooms as it is told, when the earth opened up and
- [Teaching Out Loud](https://marshapincus.com/2015/10/teaching-out-loud/) - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE What: One-woman show on education written and performed by award-winning teacher Where: Railyard Performance Center 1611 Paseo De Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501 When: Nov. 14, 2015, 7 p.m. Contact: Marsha Pincus (610) 529 9269 Teachers, parents and other members of the Santa Fe community who care deeply about the current
- [A Good Day to Be [Re]Born](https://marshapincus.com/2015/04/a-good-day-to-be-reborn/) - Today is a good day to be born. I write this in my journal every day for a week as I sit anxiously across from my daughter Ali, who at 40 weeks is more pregnant than she’s ever been. Her first child, Tyler, was due on May 31, 2012, only he arrived two months early.
- [Groundbreaking Sale at the Cemetery](https://marshapincus.com/2014/08/groundbreaking-sale-at-the-cemetery/) - I don't think about the dead very much. They are not a part of my life these days, the way they once were when, as a child, I would climb into the back seat of my father's late model American made sedan, fight with my younger sister and brother about who had to sit in
- [Tarot or Not Tarot?](https://marshapincus.com/2015/01/tarot-or-not-tarot/) - I've recently enrolled in an on-line writing course entitled Wheel of Archetypal Selves, through the Story Circle Network and taught by Tania Pryputniewicz. The course invites the participants to use the Major Arcana of the Tarot to mine our past and current experiences through the lens of specific cards and use the imagery to inspire our writing.
- [Cracking My Veneer](https://marshapincus.com/2014/09/cracking-my-veneer/) - Photo of veneers from parkcitiesdentalcare.com "That's not your teeth!" I said to his picture when I saw it on Facebook after not seeing him for nearly forty years. Forget that his hair was white, his forehead lined, his eyes deepened. It was his teeth which startled me. Gone were
- [Finding a Writing Practice In 17 Syllables](https://marshapincus.com/2014/08/finding-a-writing-practice-in-17-syllables/) - Soon after I retired from teaching high school for thirty-five years, after hearing the voice inside my head say, “If you don’t stop teaching you are going to die,” I decided to look into MFA programs in Creative Writing.I had supported others in their writing for over three decades, smiling proudly as my students won accolades,
- [Of Cats and Trolls and the Healing Power of Storytelling](https://marshapincus.com/2014/06/of-cats-and-trolls-and-the-healing-power-of-storytelling/) - I have always believed in the transformative power of stories. The most edifying aspect of my 35 year teaching career was working with Philadelphia Young Playwrights to teach young people how to write, revise and stage their own plays. During those years, in classroom after classroom with student after student, I witnessed the impact that playwriting had
- [Artful Juxtaposition](https://marshapincus.com/2014/01/artful-juxtaposition/) - http://momastery.com/blog/2012/01/04/2011-lesson-2-dont-carpe-diem/In retrospect, given the long view, there are no surprises in life, really. When you wrench events out of the chronological order in which you first experienced them, or when you examine your life's experiences under the telescopic scrutiny of hindsight, time conflates, and moments of being line up in new and different ways. And
- [Express Yourself](https://marshapincus.com/2013/07/express-yourself/) - It’s been a while since I opened the doorway to my own imagination and stood at the entrance facing endless possibilities. It’s not like I’ve been idle. Quite the opposite really. I’ve been taking a drawing class this summer. It is my first studio art
- [Baby Dreams](https://marshapincus.com/2013/06/baby-dreams/) - My dreams are crawling with babies. Little rug rats, motoring every which way. My dream room resembles an Escher print where babies dressed in pink and blue ascend and descend surreal staircases and climb up
- [Souls in the NICU](https://marshapincus.com/2013/05/souls-in-the-nicu/) - There are souls in the NICU. I have felt them. They are large and they are loud. Sitting in a tweed chair in a glass and metal lobby, I wait for my turn to enter. Visitors are limited. One parent plus one other relative at a time. I have a
- [Remembering the Summer of Love](https://marshapincus.com/2012/10/remembering-the-summer-of-love/) - Write about a place that is important to you. That was the writing prompt for last week's writing groups session. Is the past a place? How about my inner world? Are those settings? I spend an awful lot of time in both of those places, especially when they intersect. Have you ever seen the fountain
- [Cold War Summer](https://marshapincus.com/2012/07/cold-war-summer/) - Cold War SummerLet’s drop a bomb.Why shouldn’t we drop a bomb?Now is the time for itWhile we are youngLet’s drop a bomb. Suzy Cohen’s mother’s voice boomed out at us through her kitchen window as we played in her rocky back yard. Suzy, her brother Robert, my friend Ellie and I were playing “statues” – a
- [Fourth Street Positively -](https://marshapincus.com/2012/05/fourth-street-positively/) - By the summer of 1968, smoking marijuana with my friends had become a tired ritual. Each hot and empty night followed the previous one in an endless cycle of semi-suburban tedium. First, my fifteen year old girlfriends and I would gather on the corner of Darlington and Flagstaff in our Pine Valleyneighborhood. Then we’d wait
- [Coming Apart - Coming Together](https://marshapincus.com/2012/03/coming-apart-coming-together/) - Recently, my therapist, the Jungian analyst Angelo Spoto, told me a story he had heard about James Hillman. At age sixty-five, Hillman had set off to visit his 85 year old father. At this time in Hillman’s life, he was very successful, having studied with Carl Jung in Zurich, penned dozens of highly acclaimed books
- [Ephemera - For You](https://marshapincus.com/2011/12/ephemera-for-you/) - VIICome daughter. Let me tell you the story of Ephemera. This is a story of a woman who gave birth to herself. No one has ever really seen her, except they say, for one tiny little girl they call Ephemera, who some think may even be the daughter of this woman. The story goes:Once three
- [A Camera of Her Own](https://marshapincus.com/2011/12/a-camera-of-her-own/) - "You do know, Marsha, that camera means room in Italian." ( I didn’t) “Photoshop is a 21st century form of active imagination.” I found this idea on JungQuotes posted beneath a picture of Carl Jung’s face affixed atop the body of a yogi. And I sat back in my chair, in front of my computer
- [Patchwork](https://marshapincus.com/2011/11/patchwork/) - Maybe tomorrow, I will tryto read the language of stones;to find the meaning in the placementof slabs of granitecut and stitched beneath my feet.I will learn to translatecracks and spacesand gather cluesfrom sprigs of maroon cloverpushing through the mortarwhich has failed tohold these storiestogether. all images by Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus 2011
- [How to Retire With Joy:  For Carolyn and all of my friends who have walked away from the classrooms they loved.](https://marshapincus.com/2011/10/how-to-retire-with-joy-for-carolyn-and-all-of-my-friends-who-have-walked-away-from-the-classrooms-they-loved/) - First, have no plan.I know how hard that will be for you, given that for almost forty years of your life, you not only had a plan but were the one who created and implemented the plan for everyone else- wrote the daily, weekly and monthly lesson plans complete with the behavioral objectives and specific
- [Teaching on 9-11-2001: Remember](https://marshapincus.com/2011/09/teaching-on-9-11-2001-remember/) - Septmeber 11, 2001 began in Philadelphia as a beautiful late summer day. I remember thinking how beautiful the Center City skyline looked against the clear blue sky as I was driving to school along the river drive. I was feeling particularly blessed, loving my job as an English and Drama teacher at Masterman High School,
- [Emergence](https://marshapincus.com/2011/08/emergence/) - In writing group tonight, the prompt was to reflect on the questions you currently have about your writing. Here's what I wrote. How do you write about the drama that is occurring in the inner world - the rich and complex landscape of dreams, active imagination and synchroncities? How do you tell the unfolding story
- [The Pact:  An 8th Grade Memory](https://marshapincus.com/2011/08/the-pact-an-8th-grade-memory/) - The paper which fell from my notebook and landed on the floor of Room 220 at George Washington Junior-Senior High School and was then picked up ( and read --- OH NO!!!!!) by Miss Ortino, aka The Jolly Green Giant (the tallest and most humorless teacher we 13 year olds had ever known) said the
- [My Midsummer Night's Dream](https://marshapincus.com/2011/08/my-midsummer-nights-dream/) - “A wink is not a blink,” he says coyly, closing one eye so quickly I would have hardly noticed it happened at all except for the twinkle that lingers in the corner of his opened blue eyes and the hint of a suppressed smile trembling on the left side of his otherwise still lips.His lips
- [Of Moon Walks and Broken Dreams:  Rendering a Distant Memory](https://marshapincus.com/2011/07/of-moon-walks-and-broken-dreams-rendering-a-distant-memory/) - a repost --- in honor of the 42 anniversary of the moon walk...I have been trying to write about the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 since last week. I wanted to write a piece that talked about where I was on that historic evening during the summer of 1969. The summer was tumultuous for all
- [Looking/Back](https://marshapincus.com/2011/07/lookingback/) - My back hurts a lot. All the time. My friend Elizabeth who knows about chakras and energy medicine and reiki and tarot and goddess wisdom and more tells me: People with back pain live in the past. It is your past pushing up behind and against you. Let it go. So I have been reading
- [Silent Treatment](https://marshapincus.com/2011/06/silent-treatment/) - You told me once when you were still talking to mehow you love voices.No two are alike, you said.Like people or snowflakes.Both a noun and a verb,the organ of the soul,voice rouses memories and quickens the pulse.Voice is alive.There is no soundwithout breath.My favorite sound -a sigh of exhalationthe ~~ahhhhhhh~~~of surrender.I love that voice is
- [Two Poems about Teaching: For my Teacher Friends as Another Year Closes](https://marshapincus.com/2011/06/two-poems-about-teaching-for-my-teacher-friends-as-another-year-closes/) - I Follow the steps in the complex dance.Listen closely to what they are not sayingThen lead them gentlyBack to themselves. II Teaching is wonderMiracles unfold.Teaching is alchemyLead changes to gold Teaching is soaring To heights oh so high.Teaching is romanceFall in love.....Say Good-bye.
- [Polaris Rising](https://marshapincus.com/2011/05/polaris-rising/) - I’ve lost touch with the stars. Like titles that have broken away from their stories, their names are familiar, but I can no longer connect them to their place in the sky. Which way is north? he would say to me in the backyard at night. And I’d feel so smart sneaking a peak before
- [Learning Geometry: Looking Again](https://marshapincus.com/2011/05/learning-geometry-looking-again/) - Take a picture of someone you knowOr even of yourself andFold the picture in halfAnd hold a mirror along theLine of the center crease.Divide the face in halfThen multiply each half by itself.I once saw this done With an image of Richard Nixon -1972, on the cover of NewsweekA country as splitAs the psyche of
- [Where I'm From:  Homage to George Ella Lyon](https://marshapincus.com/2011/05/where-im-from-homage-to-george-ella-lyon/) - When I was teaching, I always made sure that I completed every writing assignment I ever gave my students. I would also share each piece with them when the time was right. This entry is my version of a very generative poem, written by George Ella Lyon, and used by thousands of English teachers around
- [Pine Valley '62: A Summer Idyll](https://marshapincus.com/2011/05/pine-valley-62-a-summer-idyll/) - The summer the locusts came we made them our pets. The endless July days would begin the way they ended – with the resonant song of the cicadas. Jackie, Jennifer and I, then ten would capture the cicadas, carefully remove their wings then gently loop the colorful finger-knitted leashes around their necks. First we’d name
- [Casting Off](https://marshapincus.com/2011/04/casting-off/) - **** Cast Off1 – To throw away or aside2 - To throw out a lure or bait 3 - To complete the final row of stitches 4 - To set sail I have cast off my identity as a teacher – the person who I was for thirty-four years. I walked away from the classroom
- [Live](https://marshapincus.com/2011/03/live/) - I don’t know what I expected, really, when I got the idea to take him to the theater. But once he told me that he hadn’t seen a live production for decades, couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been inside a theatre, I knew I wanted to give him that experience. He was in
- [Writing: From Loretto to Grace](https://marshapincus.com/2011/01/writing-from-loretto-to-grace/) - “If you don’t stop [fill in the blank with any of the usual misbehaviors of a rebellious and angry teen-aged girl] I will send you to live at 8309 Loretto Ave. Is that what you want?” The person making that threat, usually at the top of her lungs with something big like a broom raised
- [Mother and Daughter: Reading Each Other's Lives](https://marshapincus.com/2010/12/mother-and-daughter-reading-each-others-lives/) - "This is not about you, Mother," I say but of course I know it is. "Didn't you see the title of this blog? I call it "her own terms" for a reason." I had been writing this blog for over two years and for all of this time, somehow, I'd been able to keep it
- [Terra Bound and the Poetics of Space](https://marshapincus.com/2010/12/terra-bound-and-the-poetics-of-space/) - Last night in writing group, the prompt was to write a fifteen line “mirror” poem in which the first seven lines are repeated in reverse order. Here is what I wrote:Her celestial husband is not terra bound as he makes his home in the sky.Each night, she climbs the stairway of treesentering their bed of
- [Inside the Composition Book: The Stories We Tell](https://marshapincus.com/2010/12/inside-the-composition-book-the-stories-we-tell/) - The summer before I entered 7th grade I wrote a book. I wrote it in one of those ubiquitous marble copy books that all American adults of a certain age will forever associate with school. But instead of writing my name, grade and subject on the appropriate box on the front cover in the spaces
- [The Vanity of Memory](https://marshapincus.com/2010/12/the-vanity-of-memory/) - Somewhere deep in my memory, there is a carved mahogany vanity.Do they even make vanities anymore? I wonder. The name of the furniture presupposes its use and describes one of the attributes of all of the women who’ve sat before it, gazing into beveled mirrors, rubbing their faces gently, trying to erase lines real and
- [Dreaming: The Shadow](https://marshapincus.com/2010/11/dreaming-the-shadow/) - I have always been afraid of my shadow. And yes, I mean it in both senses of the word – the Jungian shadow buried deep in my unconscious containing all of the psychic material I had long ago stuffed there like old childhood clothes crammed into a trunk with a metal lock threaded into a
- [Dreaming: Herself](https://marshapincus.com/2010/11/dreaming-herself/) - So it happened again last night - the big dream - the recurring one I have had in various iterations since the first terrifying time when I was eleven years old. In each of these dreams, which have haunted me for over forty-five years, there is a baby and this baby is in my care
- [Finishing the Hat: Following the Urge to Create](https://marshapincus.com/2010/11/finishing-the-hat-following-the-urge-to-create/) - There's a part of you always standing by,Mapping out the sky,Finishing a hat...Starting on a hat..Finishing a hat...Look, I made a hat...Where there never was a hatFinishing the Hat. This is the title of a new book by Stephen Sondheim, a collection of his lyrics replete with his personal reflections of the process of songwriting.
- [Opening Doors: Chasing a Dead Man's Story](https://marshapincus.com/2010/10/opening-doors-chasing-a-dead-mans-story/) - Walking through the National Gardens adjacent to Syntagma Square in Athens, I came upon a mysterious sculpture. If I hadn't taken a picture of it, I may have been inclined to believe I'd imagned it, as I could find no mention of it in any of the tour books or web sites about this beautiful
- [Teach, Tony Danza, Teach](https://marshapincus.com/2010/10/teach-tony-danza-teach/) - I watched Teach Tony Danza three times. I must admit. The first time I watched it, I cried like a baby, right along with the 59 year old actor who is facing his mortality and wanting to travel down the “road not taken” by becoming a teacher. Being close to this age myself, recently retired
- [On Silence, Stories, Sons and Mad Mad Men](https://marshapincus.com/2010/10/on-silence-stories-sons-and-mad-mad-men/) - I love imagistic writers. I want to be one. I want to write about the silver sliver of a moon that hangs like a machete over ripened stars in the Dominican sky, like Julia Alvarez in In the Time of the Butterflies.Or that silly (and lovely) moment in The Owl and the Pussycat where Barbra
- [Documentary Daze: Waiting for Waiting for Superman](https://marshapincus.com/2010/10/documentary-daze-waiting-for-waiting-for-superman/) - I have to admit. I had never really been a big fan of documentaries. Until recently, I had only seen two of them in the theater – Spellbound and Mad Hot Ballroom – and I can’t remember ever renting one. That all changed when I reconnected with Barry, my friend from college who turned out
- [Let the Stones Speak](https://marshapincus.com/2010/10/let-the-stones-speak/) - Sometimes the words don't come. They get stuck deep inside the gap between the pieces of your divided heart.When that happens, it's best to let the stones speak and tell their long lost stories.Put your ear to my heart and listen.
- [Breaking Glass](https://marshapincus.com/2010/09/breaking-glass/) - I am taking a mosaics class. I don't know if I consciously chose this class because I am in the process of falling apart, or, if as unconsciouses are want to do, mine selected it for me from a random list of classes at Main Line Art Center.When I was a girl, I made things
- [Still Moving](https://marshapincus.com/2010/09/still-moving/) - Our faces blur as we whirl past each other, like beams of light in caves of darkness - Moving too quickly for an eye to take shape, a mouth to form words, or a kiss.Sometimes a sweet scent of another wafts past us like a soft touch we must have imagined.We're startled awake for but
- [Just Sayin’!….. But Who’s Listening??](https://marshapincus.com/2010/09/just-sayin-but-whos-listening/) - “I just want to be heard!” my students would yell, when the discussions in class got hot and contentious. Their voices would get louder, the tension in the room would mount. “I want to be heard too!” “Me too!” “And what about me?” Often, these discussions were about race and/or gender, sometimes in response to
- [Masterman, Obama and Ackerman: Part II - Looking for Nuance](https://marshapincus.com/2010/09/masterman-obama-and-ackerman-part-ii-looking-for-nuance/) - In a wonderful talk posted on Ted.com, the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses the “danger of a single story.” “Show a people as one thing over and over again, and that is what they become,” she says, talking about her own experiences growing up in Nigeria and reading Western accounts of Africa. “You cannot
- [Masterman, Obama, and Ackerman. Part I](https://marshapincus.com/2010/09/masterman-obama-and-ackerman-part-i/) - Ever since I heard that President Obama had decided to make his "Back to School" speech to the nation from the auditorium of J.R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Philadelphia, the place where I spent the final ten years of my thirty four year teaching career before retiring in 2008, my head has been
- [The Teaching Life Revisited](https://marshapincus.com/2010/09/the-teaching-life-revisited/) - Teaching in Philadelphia: In RetrospectMaybe This YearBuried beneath the test scores, the rosters, the class lists, the attendance statistics, the roll sheets, the interim reports, the report cards, the serious incident testimonies, the counseling referrals, the truant officer’s legal briefs, the probation officer’s assessments, the lesson plans, the behavioral objectives and the specific learning outcomes,
- [Words Falling From the Sky](https://marshapincus.com/2010/08/words-falling-from-the-sky/) - There is a little girl who catches Words as they fall from the sky… She lets them melt on Her tongue like snowflakes.There are sweet words and bitter wordsAnd words that are way too hard for her to swallow. Words that are too hot to hold And words that she just wants to cuddle.She wants
- [The Synchronicity of Butterflies](https://marshapincus.com/2010/08/the-synchronicity-of-butterflies/) - The day that my friend Tobi Zion delivered the painting of me that I had commissioned her to do, I found a dead butterfly floating on the top of my pool. The painting, entitled “Marsha, Reborn” grew out of conversations I had been having with Tobi about this passage of life I have been going
- [Thinking about [Re]Birth](https://marshapincus.com/2010/08/thinking-about-rebirth/) - I didn’t have natural childbirth, though I labored mightily with my first child thirty years ago. My husband and I had done birthing classes – pure Lamaze training with Marie Lorello, a legendary midwife and Lamaze instructor, who was all the rage among educated young women like myself, who were determined to have a different
- [When Meaning Eludes Us](https://marshapincus.com/2010/07/when-meaning-eludes-us/) - Once, when I was teaching college,I had a student from Wyoming in one of my classes. When I asked him how he liked it here on the East Coast, he said, “I like it well enough, but I get homesick for the sky.” I had no idea what he meant, of course, until I went
- [Mad Men and the Carousel of Memory](https://marshapincus.com/2010/07/mad-men-and-the-carousel-of-memory/) - We're captive on the carousel of time.... Joni MitchellOn the Season One finale of Mad Men, Don Draper is seen making a pitch to executives of Eastman Kodak, who are looking for an advertising agency to market their new product - a slide projector which uses a circular tray to advance the pictures. They have
- [To Muse or Not To Muse - A Woman's Quest(ion)](https://marshapincus.com/2010/07/to-muse-or-not-to-muse-a-womans-question/) - I wrote this piece several months ago and chose at that time not to publish it to my blog. When I shared it with a few women friends and colleagues, they said that they connected with it, some of them deeply; however, when I gave it to a few of the men in my life,
- [Solfeggio*](https://marshapincus.com/2010/07/solfeggio/) - *1. Voice practice where the syllables of notes are sung, silently in your own mind.. 2. Healing soundsShe lives in the in-betweenThe hollow that divides dreams from realityThe space between the notes on the pageAnd the sounds of the music they represent.She lives somewhere between past and futureBut nowhere near the present, because To live
- [Starting Anew and Living on the Hyphen.](https://marshapincus.com/2010/07/starting-anew-and-living-on-the-hyphen/) - When I first began this blog in September of 2008, I had recently retired from a 34 year career as a public school teacher in the School District of Philadelphia. For those 34 years, my classroom along with my family were at the center of my life. I left the classroom at the same time
- [Adjusted on the Space-Time Continuum](https://marshapincus.com/2010/03/adjusted-on-the-space-time-continuum/) - I’ve written about my chiropractor before. He’s an interesting man, trim and earnest and I still haven’t decided if I take him or chiropractic seriously. Yet I start each week, every Monday morning by getting into my car, weaving in and out of rush hour traffic on the expressway and driving to his tiny, homey
- [Through the Eyes of Love](https://marshapincus.com/2010/03/through-the-eyes-of-love/) - I spent a good part of this winter day looking through old family pictures. I was looking for one special photograph somewhere amidst the thousands that are in boxes I store in a cabinet in the family room. And while I pride myself on keeping pictures, documents, artifacts that are important to our family’s history,
- [Angels in the Zeitgest](https://marshapincus.com/2010/03/angels-in-the-zeitgest/) - It's funny sometimes how a certain image or idea seems to come out of nowhere and take hold in popular imagination. I wrote the following introduction to a short story last week at my weekly writers' group. In the car on the way to the class, I felt an itch on my back. The serendipitous
- [Notes from the Edge](https://marshapincus.com/2010/02/notes-from-the-edge/) - There is no place of comfort on the edge. But then, who needs comfort. She’s been too comfortable her whole life. She sits before the web cam. She turns on the camera and slowly removes her clothes. She’s had three glasses of wine at dinner, but it’s way too early to go to bed.Click. She
- [An Early Writing Memory - The Stories We Tell](https://marshapincus.com/2010/02/an-early-writing-memory-the-stories-we-tell/) - The summer before I entered 7th grade I wrote a book. I wrote it in one of those ubiquitous marble copy books that all American adults of a certain age will forever associate with school. But instead of writing my name, grade and subject on the appropriate box on the front cover in the spaces
- [A Dancing and Soaring Spirit: Remembering Adele Magner 10 Years Later](https://marshapincus.com/2010/01/a-dancing-and-soaring-spirit-remembering-adele-magner-10-years-later/) - When my dear friend, colleague and mentor Adele Magner passed away ten years ago, January 6th, I was asked to give one of the eulogies at her funeral. It was the most difficult thing I had ever had to do in my life. Knowing that Adele loved theater and had dedicated do much of her
- [Chiropractus Absurdus: The Road to Wellness](https://marshapincus.com/2009/12/chiropractus-absurdus-the-road-to-wellness/) - “Do you know what happens when two dogs fight? No wait, or is it, do you know what happens when you have two dogs living inside of you. No wait. Do you know what happens when you have two dogs living inside of you and they’re fighting with each other?” “Why are they fighting?” I
- [On  Scholarship and Vegetables](https://marshapincus.com/2009/12/on-scholarship-and-vegetables/) - In writing group last night, the prompt was, "Write a story about buying lettuce." Of course, I knew immediately that in order for me to write about buying lettuce, I would eventually have to get to the embarrassing fact that I don’t really eat lettuce, only really tasted it a couple of times and could
- [Remembering 9-11 : Dust to Dust](https://marshapincus.com/2009/09/remembering-9-11-dust-to-dust/) - Septmeber 11, 2001 began in Philadelphia as a beautiful late summer day. I remember thinking how beautiful the Center City skyline looked against the clear blue sky as I was driving to school along the river drive. I was feeling particularly blessed, loving my job as an English and Drama teacher at Masterman High School,
- [Peripheral Vision](https://marshapincus.com/2009/08/peripheral-vision/) - I can’t say which I see first – his eyes or his smile but they are connected. He has blue eyes that are so deep set that they look like two portals in a ships cabin looking out on the sea. The fluidity of his eyes
- [September Approaching -- The Time for Teacher Dreams Redux](https://marshapincus.com/2009/08/september-approaching-the-time-for-teacher-dreams-redux/) - Anyone who has ever taught school for more than a year has had this dream. It usually arrives mid August, though in some especially stressful years, it can come as early as July, virtually ruining the rest of the summer. There is always a teacher in the dream and the teacher is always the person
- [Of Moon Walks and Broken Dreams:  Rendering a Distant Memory](https://marshapincus.com/2009/07/of-moon-walks-and-broken-dreams-rendering-a-distant-memory-2/) - I have been trying to write about the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 since last week. I wanted to write a piece that talked about where I was on that historic evening during the summer of 1969. The summer was tumultuous for all sorts of reasons - political, historical and personal. It was one of
- [Fifty Six and Counting](https://marshapincus.com/2009/07/fifty-six-and-counting/) - I once heard someone say that if you make it out of your fifties, you have a good chance of living past eighty. I first heard this when I was in my forties, so it felt academic and not particularly ominous. But now, at age fifty-six, I am haunted by these words. Another friend died
- [Living in the In-Between: Rethinking Borders and Personal Identity](https://marshapincus.com/2009/07/living-in-the-in-between-rethinking-borders-and-personal-identity/) - Re-thinking Borders and Personal Identity: Living in the In-BetweenIt’s taken me over a year since my retirement from teaching school after 34 years to realize that for this past year, I have been living in what Gloria Anzaldua calls “la frontera” or the borderlands. Such places are characterized by transitions, multiplicities, shifting identities and contradictions.
- [Homo Narratus: On Stories and Freedom](https://marshapincus.com/2009/07/homo-narratus-on-stories-and-freedom/) - In Composing a Life, Mary Catherine Bateson writes about the empowering nature of multiple narratives that people sometimes construct for our lives. The ability to construct different versions of the same major events or turning points in our lives enables us to see the power we have in making meaning for ourselves. And in CHOOSING
- [Of Birthdays and L'entr'actes](https://marshapincus.com/2009/07/of-birthdays-and-lentractes/) - We celebrated my mother’s 80th birthday yesterday by dancing. And right there in the middle of the floor for the entire 4 hours was my mother Shirley, in her 80 year old glory, shaking her booty, and shimmying up to her 86 year old fourth and fabulous husband, Irving. The party was held at Irving’s
- [Searching for a New Vocabulary](https://marshapincus.com/2009/07/searching-for-a-new-vocabulary/) - Searching for a New VocabularyI joined a writers’ group last night. Run by a local woman trained by Pat Schneider and the Amherst Writers and Artists Methodology, my new writers group consists of twelve people of varying ages and backgrounds, including some who are published writers.It’s hard for me to think of myself as a
- [A Childhood Idyll in Pine Valley, PA](https://marshapincus.com/2009/06/a-childhood-idyll-in-pine-valley-pa/) - The summer the locusts came we made them our pets. The endless July days would begin the way they ended – with the resonant song of the insects. Jackie, Jennifer and I, then ten would capture the cicadas, carefully remove their wings then gently loop the colorful finger-knitted leashes around their necks. First we’d name
- [Embracing the Dissonance ( Again... and again)](https://marshapincus.com/2009/05/embracing-the-dissonance-again-and-again/) - There is a picture in an old psychology text-book which has haunted me since I was a very young woman. In a square, in black and white, appears what seems to be the outline of a young woman. The caption beneath the picture informs me that if I look at this image in a different
- [Reading the Writing on The Wall: Troubling Community and Identity in an Urban Magnet School](https://marshapincus.com/2009/04/reading-the-writing-on-the-wall-troubling-community-and-identity-in-an-urban-magnet-school/) - DissonanceI’d like to begin with an excerpt from my teaching journal dated January 6, 2000On a cold January morning, teachers, and students arrive at school to find the building covered in graffiti. On the back wall, by the door and visible to teachers coming from the parking lot or parents dropping students off from car
- [Where We're From: A Collaborative Poem, by students from the School District of Philadelphia](https://marshapincus.com/2009/04/where-were-from-a-collaborative-poem-by-students-from-the-school-district-of-philadelphia/) - This is a disclaimer.A What?A disclaimer.For What?To let them know.Ohhhh.Yeah.This is a disclaimer to let everyone here know they will not see a poem about Philly being the cradle of LibertyAnd by the time this poem is done you won’t hear anyone say “ The Liberty Bell is wher I’m from.”This is a disclaimer to
- [Creating the "In-Between"  A Playwriting Exchange Between Students in Philadelphia and Ketchikan Alaska](https://marshapincus.com/2009/04/creating-the-in-between-a-playwriting-exchange-between-students-in-philadelphia-and-ketchikan-alaska/) - In her article “Evaluation and Dignity,” Maxine Greene refers to Hannah Arendt and her concept of the “in-between.” The in-between, says Arendt is a place where people can achieve their full humanity with one another. It emerges through a web of relationships woven through authentic disclosures. This concept is helpful in thinking about and reconstructing
- [Crossroads Redux](https://marshapincus.com/2009/03/crossroads-redux/) - On April 9th, several Crossroads Alumni and I will be doing a presentation at Bryn Mawr College in Jody Cohen's Critical Issues in Education Class in which we will discuss the impact of Crossroads on our lives 18 years after it was founded in 1991. The alumni have all been educators for many years and
- [On tracks and things in high school](https://marshapincus.com/2009/03/on-tracks-and-things-in-high-school/) - When I was a teen-ager, school was my salvation. It provided a structure and predictability that the rest of my life lacked. While some people hated the monotony of the routine, I reveled in the sameness of it all…. The same locker, the same classes, the same teachers, the same friends. Plus, I was good
- [Duane and Me...Eleven Years Later .. With Love](https://marshapincus.com/2009/03/duane-and-me-eleven-years-later-with-love/) - Eleven years ago, I had an encounter with a student that stayed with me for years. In 2001 at a writing retreat for teachers, I wrote about that encounter. The essay entitled "The Stories They Tell" talks about a young man named Duane who has given up trying to complete a senior project he needs
- [Beyond Wiggle Room: Creating Spaces for Authentic Learning in a Senior English Class](https://marshapincus.com/2009/03/beyond-wiggle-room-creating-spaces-for-authentic-learning-in-a-senior-english-class/) - Beyond ‘Wiggle Room’:Creating Spaces for Authentic Learning in a Senior English ClassMarsha Rosenzweig PincusI would like to see a curriculum that is not so structured and restricting, with some wiggle room. I’d like to have a variation of different teaching methods and materials: a class that isn’t so predictable. I’d like to read books that
- [Stories: The Cure for "Hardening of the Ideologies"](https://marshapincus.com/2009/03/stories-the-cure-for-hardening-of-the-ideologies/) - Discover the steps in the complex dance Listen closely to what they're not saying Then lead them gently back to themselves.Over twenty years ago, I had the unique opportunity to participate in a program that was to change the course of my life and the lives of my students. That program, Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival
- [Student Voices in Dialogue With Teachers - Part I](https://marshapincus.com/2009/03/student-voices-in-dialogue-with-teachers-part-i/) - I have been extremely fortunate to have been able to stay in contact with many of my former students, some of them already in their forties, others whom I taught last year, still in high school. This blog entry was originally posted as a response to my essay, "The stories they tell" in which I
- [To Mr. Rose, with Love and Gratitude](https://marshapincus.com/2009/03/to-mr-rose-with-love-and-gratitude/) - Dear Mr. Rose,I am writing to you today because I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since yesterday when my friend Mimi posted our 6th grade graduation picture from Bustleton Elementary School in Philadelphia in 1964. As I viewed the picture, scanning the images for the faces of friends, trying to remember first
- [Assessing Assessment -- Twenty Years Later -- Will We Ever Trust Teachers?](https://marshapincus.com/2009/02/assessing-assessment-twenty-years-later-will-we-ever-trust-teachers/) - Nearly two decades ago, in July, 1989, I was invited to give an address at the Philadelphia Board of Education about the role of assessment in my teaching. I was the only teacher invited to present to the assembled group of university professors, outside consultants and school district administrators. Grant Wiggins was the the outside
- [Missing School- Missing Community - Missing Teachers](https://marshapincus.com/2009/02/missing-school-missing-community-missing-teachers/) - "The Teacher" by Marlene DumasLately I have been hearing a little voice in my head saying, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." Sure, when I retired from teaching after 34 years, I knew that I was going to miss the students. I was going to miss listening to their stories, supporting them
- [An Open Letter to Michelle Rhee: In Response to the article in the December issue of Time](https://marshapincus.com/2009/01/an-open-letter-to-michelle-rhee-in-response-to-the-article-in-the-december-issue-of-time/) - For the past four years, I have had the challenging experience of being an instructor in the Teach For America (TFA) Urban Teacher Master's and Certification Program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. While I have my doubts about the program and believe that it sometimes does more harm than
- [Opportunity for Women Teachers Who Write](https://marshapincus.com/2008/12/opportunity-for-women-teachers-who-write/) - For my entire career as a teacher of English, I have supported the writing of others. I have provided them with tools they needed to shape their vision and I have learned how to form supportive and nurturing writing communities. Two summers ago, I gave myself a wonderful gift. I applied to attend the 2007
- [Beyond Wiggle Room](https://marshapincus.com/2008/12/beyond-wiggle-room/) - I am establishing this space on my blog to post materials related to the upcoming publication of my chapter in Alison Cook-Sather's handbook on student voice entitled Student Learning from the Student’s Perspective: A Methods Sourcebook for Effective Teaching. Paradigm Publishers, forthcoming. There are additional materials related to the chapter that I will publish here
- [Teachers Dreaming - Only Connect](https://marshapincus.com/2008/12/teachers-dreaming-only-connect/) - Anyone who has ever taught school for more than a year has had this dream. It usually arrives mid August, though in some especially stressful years, it can come as early as July, virtually ruining the rest of the summer. There is always a teacher in the dream and the teacher is always the person
- [Teachers and Autoworkers -- Connecting the Dots](https://marshapincus.com/2008/12/teachers-and-autoworkers-connecting-the-dots/) - I was heartened to read Bob Herbert's column ( link included below) in today's New York Times in which he compares the plight of American teachers and the public perception of the American Federation of Teachers to the plight of the auto workers and the perception of the UAW. I have often thought about these
- [Teachers and Students Sharing Stories](https://marshapincus.com/2008/12/teachers-and-students-sharing-stories/) - A couple of years ago, students in the Peer-Counseling group put on a play for the student body about some of the problems facing students in high school. There is nothing unique about this -- it happens in schools all over the country every year. What was special about this play was that the students
- [Through Students' Eyes - Establishing Community in the Classroom](https://marshapincus.com/2008/12/through-students-eyes-establishing-community-in-the-classroom/) - Sometimes, if we're lucky, we get to see our classrooms through our students' eyes. The statement below, by my former student Ogadi, describes her recollection of English class in 11th grade and the impact of a particular community building activity we did early in the year. Too often, educators forget that we are teaching human
- [Are Things Really Harder for Today's Teachers Than They Were for Us?](https://marshapincus.com/2008/12/are-things-really-harder-for-todays-teachers-than-they-were-for-us/) - I am having a hard time answering that question. I know that I hear the stories of young teachers, especially the ones who have decided that they can't stay in the Philadelphia public schools. I hear them talk about lack of resources -- not enough books to send home with students -- not enough class
- [Remembering an Extrordinary Educator](https://marshapincus.com/2008/12/remembering-an-extrordinary-educator/) - My friend and colleague Carolyn Cohen sent me this newspaper article this morning. It was sent to her by a friend, also a teacher and colleague of Bernie Glaze, an extraordinary teacher who died of lung cancer in November. The article, which I share in full below paints the picture of the kind of teacher
- [Into the "Great Beyond" -- Opportunities for Living, Learning and Making a Difference After the Classroom](https://marshapincus.com/2008/12/into-the-great-beyond-opportunities-for-living-learning-and-making-a-difference-after-the-classroom/) - Last year, near the end of the school year, when my days as a teacher were numbered, one of my colleagues said to me, "Well ten more days until you go into the great beyond." At the time it struck me as an odd statement and I thought about it all summer. Every day that
- [The Inner Lives of Teachers as "People"  - Staying Wide Awake to Our Fears and Dreams](https://marshapincus.com/2008/11/the-inner-lives-of-teachers-as-people-staying-wide-awake-to-our-fears-and-dreams/) - Once, many years ago, a former student of mine who had recently graduated came back to our high school to visit. He was someone whom I had taught for several years and with whom I maintained a relationship beyond high school, helping him make the transition to college. He stopped in, said hello, then spent
- [Thoughts about Helping  Excellent Young Teachers Stay in the Classroom](https://marshapincus.com/2008/11/thoughts-about-helping-excellent-young-teachers-stay-in-the-classroom/) - This Thursday, I am meeting with 20+ 3rd and 4th year teachers in the School District of Philadelphia. What is unique about this group is that they are all veterans of Teach for America and graduates of the Masters or Certification program at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. These are
- [Ready Willing and Able](https://marshapincus.com/2008/11/ready-willing-and-able/) - On Wednesday morning when I went to my computer, I noticed that my son's away message on his google chat said, "ready, willing and able." When he came on line, I asked him what he meant. He replied, "to serve Obama."My son is a young attorney working for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. When I
- [Thoughts on the Morning of Election Day.](https://marshapincus.com/2008/11/thoughts-on-the-morning-of-election-day/) - A couple of days ago, I was having coffee with an African American friend and we were discussing the upcoming election. I told her that I was worried that if there was a close election and Obama lost in a fashion similar to Al Gore's infamous defeat in 2000 that there would be civil unrest.
- [Reflections on Italy -- student protests, social justice and equity](https://marshapincus.com/2008/11/reflections-on-italy-student-protests-social-justice-and-equity/) - I have recently returned from a very enlightening and magical trip to Italy. It is the first trip of my retirement and the first vacation my husband and I have taken out of the country. I had only been to Europe once, prior to this trip -- with the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors Fellowship
- [Listen to Maxine Greene](https://marshapincus.com/2008/10/listen-to-maxine-greene/) - Before I leave for my two week vacation in Italy, I wanted to post this lecture by Maxine Greene. I had the privilege of meeting Maxine in the early 1990's. I presented with my students at two of her conferences and she spoke in Philadelphia at an event sponsored by the Bartol Foundation the year
- [My Bill Ayers Moment](https://marshapincus.com/2008/10/my-bill-ayers-moment/) - I must be a terrorist -- or at least have terrorist leanings. See, I have four books written or edited by Bill Ayers on my book shelf and I actually met the man at an education conference at Teachers College in Columbia University in 1994. If the FBI were ever to search my computer for
- [Coming Full Circle -- Former Students as Teachers Redux](https://marshapincus.com/2008/10/coming-full-circle-former-students-as-teachers-redux/) - Below is the text of an email I received a couple of days ago from a former student from Masterman. She was in my Freshman English class in 1998-99 -- the first year that I taught at Masterman when I was still trying to figure out how to teach for social justice in a site
- [Teaching and the Election: What about a Teacher's Political Views?](https://marshapincus.com/2008/10/teaching-and-the-election-what-about-a-teachers-political-views/) - There have been many days this fall when I have been glad that I am currently not teaching. I would find it hard not to share my passionate support of Barack Obama and my intense disdain for the negative and cynical campaign being run by John McCain, Sarah Palin and their Republican supporters. I would
- [Teaching with Integrity](https://marshapincus.com/2008/10/teaching-with-integrity/) - After meeting with Deidre Farmbry and David Green and learning about their work with the Center for Evidenced Based Education (CEBE) , where I first heard about the work of Roger Martin and the Center for Integrative Thinking, I have been trying to make connections between those ideas which were developed for business management to
- [The Stories They Tell: A Teacher Remembers Her Students](https://marshapincus.com/2008/10/the-stories-they-tell-a-teacher-remembers-her-students/) - I remember my students by the stories they tell. For the past 33 years, I have been challenged, moved, and most of all transformed by the young people I have encountered in my inner city classroom. There was Steve Woods whose angry outburst of “That’s whiteman’s bullshit!” during my introductory lesson on Cry the Beloved
- [Teacher as Sisyphus: On the Occasion of my Retirement](https://marshapincus.com/2008/10/teacher-as-sisyphus-on-the-occasion-of-my-retirement/) - On the Occasion of My Retirement of the School District of Philadelphia - June 2008 Buried beneath the test scores, the rosters, the class lists, the attendance statistics, the roll sheets, the interim reports, the report cards, the serious incident testimonies, the counseling referrals, the truant officer’s legal briefs, the probation officer’s assessments, the lesson
- [Building a Legacy](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/building-a-legacy/) - I have been extraordinarily privileged to have continued my relationships with many of my former students "beyond the classroom." Over the years, I have stayed in contact with many of them as they earned their undergraduate degrees, found work in the world in different professions, and earned advanced degrees in many different disciplines.I am most
- [Images of Teaching and Teachers in the Movies](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/images-of-teaching-and-teachers-in-the-movies/) - The review in today's New York Times of the French quasi documentary "The Class" has re-awakened in me a serious interest that I have in the ways in which teaching and teachers have been represented in films throughout the decades.One of the things I would like to do in the coming months is to develop
- [Beyond the Classroom - When Your Former Students Become Teachers](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/beyond-the-classroom-when-your-former-students-become-teachers/) - This Sunday, I spent the afternoon with a former high school student of mine, Max, who is currently in his third week teaching at a neighborhood high school in Philadelphia. For three hours, we talked about his experiences and questions. I listened as he told me how using his own money, he had duplicated the
- [Into the "Great Beyond" -- Opportunities for Living, Learning and Making a Difference After the Classroom](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/into-the-great-beyond-opportunities-for-living-learning-and-making-a-difference-after-the-classroom-2/) - Last year, near the end of the school year, when my days as a teacher were numbered, one of my colleagues said to me, "Well ten more days until you go into the great beyond." At the time it struck me as an odd statement and I thought about it all summer. Every day that
- [Learning from Laramie, Redux](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/learning-from-laramie-redux/) - In 2003, I taught the play The Laramie Project to 2 sections of my Senior Drama Class at Masterman High School in Philadelphia. The experience proved to be quite profound and moving for the 55 students and myself. The issues that it addressed - religion, homosexuality, violence, and community as well as the type of
- [Making Teaching Public](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/making-teaching-public/) - This essay was written as part of the discussion at the launch of the site Making Teaching Public: A Digital Exhibition and the publication of the book Going Public With Our Teaching: An Anthology of Practice. Both projects find new ways of opening the classroom doors and sharing best practices of teachers from across the
- [Students Remembering 9-11](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/students-remembering-9-11/) - On September 11, 2001, I was teaching my English class at Masterman High School in Center City Philadelphia. It was a gorgeous fall day. The sky was blue, the air crisp and clean and I remember thinking how especially beautiful the city skyline looked as I drove to school along the scenic West River Drive.I
- [One of the Many Reasons I Support Obama](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/one-of-the-many-reasons-i-support-obama/) - Take a look at this video of Barack Obama speaking before and audience in Virginia that includes teachers from the Virginia Writing Project. At this event, Senator Obama is asked what role writing has played in his life. He responds by talking the process he went through in writing ( by himself! ) his two
- [Is "Racial Balance" the Same as Racial Equity?](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/is-racial-balance-the-same-as-racial-equity/) - In yesterday's Philadelphia Daily News, education reporter Mensah Dean presents a history of the policy of "racial balance" among the teachers at schools in the School District of Philadelphia. This is a policy that requires the teaching staff of every school to reflect the over all racial balance in the district - i.e. if 35%
- [Writing Letters for Students - A Teacher's View](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/writing-letters-for-students-a-teachers-view/) - It is only the second week of school and the second week of my retirement and already I have received several email requests from students to write them letters of recommendations for college. I know that this is just the beginning of what could become a flood of requests that will go on until January
- [All That Energy; All That Knowledge](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/all-that-energy-all-that-knowledge/) - When I was teaching, I was known as someone with an incredible amount of energy. I would carry a 24 oz. cup of coffee and actually drink most of it throughout the day. I don't know if I was really caffeinated or if I was just energized from being around all of those people every
- [End of Career Narratives](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/end-of-career-narratives/) - I have been doing a lot of thinking about the stories we tell about our careers, particularly the end of our careers. Narratives carry the meaning of the events in our lives --- birth narratives courtship narratives.... family narratives. I have spent a good part of my career fashioning teaching narratives -- stories that I
- [The first week of the rest of my life](https://marshapincus.com/2008/09/the-first-week-of-the-rest-of-my-life/) - This has been a very hard week for me --- for one of the first times in almost fifty years, I am not returning to school, any kind of school in any role after Labor Day. While I officially retired in June, I have been taking my summers off for years so the enormity of

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- [Home](https://marshapincus.com/) - Celebrating Creativity in the 4th Act The Fourth Act of our lives, if we are lucky enough to live into our seventies and wise enough to stay humble and full of grace, can be a time of deep creativity. Our final years can be lived with abundance and joy if we find a way to
- [Contact](https://marshapincus.com/contact/) - I'd love to hear from you! Please send me an email at marsha@marshapincus.com and I'll get back to you shortly.
- [Visual Art Gallery](https://marshapincus.com/creative-portfolio/visual-art-gallery/) - “The persona cracks and crumbles, no longer able to contain all that is going on in the psyche. And presumably, or so I have read, after the breakdown and fragmentation, one becomes whole.” Marsha Pincus, Breaking Glass
- [Fiber Art Gallery](https://marshapincus.com/creative-portfolio/fiber-art-gallery/) - “Knitting helps me de-tangle myself. I am a work in progress. I can change shape. I can unravel and re-stitch the rows of my existence. I can knit myself anew.” Marsha Pincus, Knitting Myself Anew
- [Creative Portfolio](https://marshapincus.com/creative-portfolio/) - “Creativity is the most basic manifestation of a man or woman fulfilling [their] own meaning in the world.” Rollo May, The Courage to Create Visual Art Gallery Music Fiber Art Gallery Two Ravens Studios
- [Creative Services](https://marshapincus.com/creative-services/) - With over forty years of experience helping others tell and craft their stories, Marsha offers a range of creative services for individuals, groups and educators including developmental editing, story consulting, dramaturgy, writing retreats, documentary theater and workshops for teachers of writing. After seeing myself, through your loving eye, I knew myself better and maybe even
- [Haiku](https://marshapincus.com/creative-writing/haiku/) - On January 1, 2014, I took a pledge along with 250 other writers and poets on Facebook to write and post a Haiku a Day for the entire year. When I began that process, I had not yet developed a disciplined writing practice. Nor had I thought of myself as a poet. The daily
- [About](https://marshapincus.com/about/) - Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus is an educator and writer who has been teaching English and Drama and coaching writers for over 40 years. Upon her retirement in 2011, Marsha began working as a Creative Consultant to writers and filmmakers while pursuing her own writing career.
- [Creative Writing](https://marshapincus.com/creative-writing/) - WRITING FOR MY LIFE From the time I was a small girl, I used writing as a way to make sense of the world and to understand my own thoughts and feelings. I still have diaries I kept in grade school, and notes that I passed to my girlfriends in Biology class in high school.
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- [Third Act Creatives](https://marshapincus.com/third-act-creatives/) - THIRD ACT CREATIVES Third Act Creatives is an on-going series of artistic projects produced by Two Ravens Studios which focus on the lives of artists, writers, activists, healers and other generative men and women recreating their lives after age 55. Today, we are in the midst of a demographic “Age Wave” which is having a profound
- [News](https://marshapincus.com/news/)
- [Presentations and Workshops](https://marshapincus.com/presentations-and-workshops/) - TEACHING IN THESE CONTENTIOUS TIMES “That’s whiteman’s bullshit!!!” Steve W. calls out from the last row. I freeze. “That’s white man’s bullshit. You’re just repeating some white man’s bullshit and we don’t have to listen to it!!!” I like Steve a lot. He’s a good guy. And smart. On the basketball team. Funny. Only he’s
- [Two Ravens Studio](https://marshapincus.com/two-ravens-studio/) - RETREATS FOR CREATIVE WOMEN “We must use what we have to invent what we desire,” Adrienne Rich, What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics I first encountered the poet Adrienne Rich when I was a doctoral student in Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. At the time I was
- [Writing](https://marshapincus.com/writing/) - WRITING FOR MY LIFE From the time I was a small girl, I used writing as a way to make sense of the world and to understand my own thoughts and feelings. I still have diaries I kept in grade school, and notes that I passed to my girlfriends in Biology class in high school.
- [Gallery](https://marshapincus.com/gallery/)
- [Coming soon](https://marshapincus.com/coming-soon/) - Maintenance Mode This website is currently under going maintenance and will be back online shortly. Thank you for your patience.

## Haiku

- [I'm here says the moon](https://marshapincus.com/haiku/im-here-says-the-moon/) - i'm here says the moon with her gentle light that can un-curse the darkness
- [a star is missing](https://marshapincus.com/haiku/a-star-is-missing/) - a star is missing from that part of the sky where her dreams used to live
- [though he's perfectly](https://marshapincus.com/haiku/though-hes-perfectly/) - though he's perfectly imperfect she tried to love him to perfection
- [he opened the door](https://marshapincus.com/haiku/he-opened-the-door/) - he opened the door to her fortified heart and set of an alarm
- [the clamor of her](https://marshapincus.com/haiku/the-clamor-of-her/) - the clamor of her monkey mind is drowning out her heart's desire
- [she becomes the void](https://marshapincus.com/haiku/she-becomes-the-void/) - she becomes the void in space which gives shape to the matter of his life
- [she tries to retrieve](https://marshapincus.com/haiku/she-tries-to-retrieve/) - she tries to retrieve that which she cut away while carving out her life

## Testimonials

- [Michael Amundsen](https://marshapincus.com/testimonial/michael-amundsen/) - Without Marsha’s active participation in sculpting the narrative of "Halvor’s Radio", it would have never turned out as well as it did. She understood what the story needed and was a supportive collaborator.
- [Michael Wardle, Artist](https://marshapincus.com/testimonial/michael-wardle/) - After seeing myself, through your loving eye, I knew myself better and maybe even loved myself a little more. Thank-you for that.

## Categories

- [Uncategorized](https://marshapincus.com/category/uncategorized/)
- [acceptance](https://marshapincus.com/category/acceptance/)
- [forgiveness](https://marshapincus.com/category/forgiveness/)
- [AA](https://marshapincus.com/category/aa/)
- [leonard cohen](https://marshapincus.com/category/leonard-cohen/)
- [self-love](https://marshapincus.com/category/self-love/)
- [amends](https://marshapincus.com/category/amends/)
- [grandmothers](https://marshapincus.com/category/grandmothers/)
- [knitting](https://marshapincus.com/category/knitting/)
- [mothers](https://marshapincus.com/category/mothers/)
- [daughters](https://marshapincus.com/category/daughters/)