Pauletta Hansel is a poet, memoirist and teacher. Her ten books include Will There Also Be Singing?, just out from Shadelandhouse Modern Press; Heartbreak Tree (Madville Publications, 2022), which won the Poetry Society of Virginia’s 2023 North American Book Award; and Palindrome (Dos Madres Press, 2017) winner of Berea College’s Weatherford Award in Poetry. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband, Owen. She leads writing workshops and retreats virtually and in the Greater Cincinnati area and beyond. Read more.
What past event do you often reflect upon, and how did that event change you?
I had the great and terrible honor of caring for my mother in her final years with dementia. While the losses from dementia are so much greater than anything that could be called a gift, it was nonetheless a time of profound learning for me. I watched my mother continue her soul work in her final years, and saw how that work moved and blessed others around her. I grew in ability to give and receive love without condition as I found myself living within the mystery of what it means to be human. I still have so much more to learn.
How does your work add to the quality of your life?
My work is primarily the writing and teaching of poetry (plus all the busyness of what it means to be a self-employed artist!) I think my best answer to this question was part of my poem, “So Maybe It’s True” in Heartbreak Tree (Madville Publishing 2022):
But, oh, to live awhile as marrow
in someone else’s bones,
to breathe her breath upon the mirror
held up to your life,
doesn’t it make you want
to fling open whatever door you come to,
doesn’t it make you want to try?
Tell us a story you would like to share with the world.
At my mom’s funeral, which was donated to the family by the funeral director who was once a young lonely college student fed at my mom’s table, one of the young women who cared for Mom in her final years got up to speak, pulling me up to stand beside her. She said, in essence (I did not capture the exact words): I am hearing all of these stories of Larnie in her younger years, of her brilliance and kindness. You think I didn’t know Larnie because I didn’t know her then. But the woman I knew is the woman you are also describing. I knew Larnie’s love.
Author photo: Kentucky Rose Photography
Side bar image: Pixabay/Edar
