Books By Mary Clare Powell

Mary Clare Powell's first book The Widow (Anaconda Press, 1981) is portraits of and interviews with her mother about the experience of being a widow. It was created out of regard for her mother's courage to claim her own life after her husband died.

It was followed by This Way Daybreak Comes:Women's Values and Future (New Society Publisher, 1986), written with Annie Cheatham. These inspiring stories of women-generated institution building were based on interviews withf hundreds of women across North America. Mary Clare and Annie went on a journey of 20,000 miles to meet these women creating alternatives for families, raising children, education, business, law, spirituality, artmaking, political action, and building communities.

Her article, "The Arts and the Inner Life of Teachers", attempts to describe the philosophy of the Creative Arts in Learning program and has been widely used within the program to illuminate the philosophical foundations of integrated arts. Mary Clare has written other articles on arts-based research, teaching in Israel during a war, poetry and aging. - Mary Clare Powell, Phi Beta Kappa, 1997

Excerpts:

"The arts can feed the inner lives of teachers, and the whole education enterprise depends on the quality of those inner lives. I mean real education--helping people grow like plants out of their own natures, not simply training them or building skills. Good teaching comes directly from the mind, heart, and spirit of an awake and growing human being."

"As we come to believe more in ourselves and our perceptions [through our own arts experiences], we become less afraid--of offending, of sharing ourselves, of criticism. This sense of self serves teachers well every minute they are with children, and if the teachers have it, they know something about how to draw it forth from children."

"The arts help teachers become multilingual, because the arts are many languages... The more languages a teacher can use, the better chance he or she has to speak and listen to diverse students."
Just as the arts lead teachers to new places within themselves, opening interior rooms and closets, so the arts can help teachers explore a pluralistic culture outside... The arts can be a first way for us and our students to experience difference, to risk leaving home... We experience the Other, the Stranger, and we learn we don't have to be afraid.."

"A veteran teacher who was 50 years old when he took my class told me, 'The arts have pulled open places which were, if not close, merely ajar. My life is richer, fuller and more fulfilled than I would have believed possible.'"

For a copy of the entire article, contact the Division of Creative Arts in Learning, Lesley University, 29 Everett St., Cambridge, MA 02138, (617) 349-8596.

Arts, Education and Social Change was edited with Vivien Marcow Speiser and published as part of the Peter Lang series in arts and education in 2005. his book is based on the conviction that the arts integrated into education can transform both teaching and learning, and practitioners of drama, dance, poetry, music, visual arts describe that transformation here.

Things Owls Ate (Amherst Writers and Artists Press, 2001) is her first book of poems. “No matter the arena, Powell clasps her subject with her two strong hands, bites in and offers its essence back to us in language dense with surprise and energy: this is poetry that compels us to live.” (Genie Zeiger)

Academic Scat (Extra Virgin Press, 2002) is a book of poems that grew out of Mary Clare’s life at Lesley University where she was sure there were poems beneath the surface. For a year she carried a journal to meetings and classes, and wrote about grading papers, making policy, and traveling to teach across the country. The image of scat informs this book of irreverent and humorous poems about teaching and learning, and mostly meetings.

In the Living Room (Extra Virgin Press, 2007 ) is a chapbook of poems about aging and all its various manifestations and mysteries. It is an attempt to communicate the subtle pleasures as well as the terror of growing old. Originally it was used as an introduction to living room discussions about one’s own aging, attempting to get down below the surface and the clichés to what is really happening, to celebrate it, and to support each other as we go.

Turkey (Extra Virgin Press, 2009)is a chapbook of poems from travels in Turkey with her godson Sam, an actor from New York. The poems grow out all night bus trips, ancient sites, carpet sellers, falling down, caring for one another, and reading Rumi over and over. It’s about youth and age, the mountains of Cappadocia, and love across generations.