An interview with Janelle Shantz Hertzler, author of Seasons of Solace

"Seasons of Solace is a beautiful book- piercing, questioning, honest, profound. These moving poems about death are full of life. Janelle leads us to the depths of grief and lifts us with the healing power of poetry in a book you won't want to put down."
- SUSAN WOOLDRIDGE, author of Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words and Foolsgold: Making Something from Nothing and Freeing Your Creative Process

"Janelle Hertzler's spare words take you to deep worlds. Brushing aside all unnecessary syllables, she unveils grief as the blow that it is, and the gift it can be. Through her images, she invites the reader to stand with her before the unchangeable, and learn not to turn away. A beautiful telling."
- PAUL D'ARCY, grief psychotherapist, noted speaker, and award-winning author of A Song for Sarah and When People Grieve

"Sometimes the enormity of experience can't be conveyed in sentences made up of words. Hertzler found her release by exploring images- visual and verbal, photographic and poetic. No matter what your experience, this book is likely to resonate with you as well."
- HOWARD ZEHR, professor of restorative justice at Eastern Mennonite University and author of The Little Book of Contemplative Photography and Transcending: Reflections from Crime Victims

Please be sure to read my review of Janelle's book (my post yesterday). And now, here is my recent interview with Janelle about Seasons of Solace...

How long has it been since your husband was killed by a drunk driver?
My husband was killed in July, 2005, so it will be five years this summer.

How did you end up at a place in your life where you sat down and wrote the poetry in this book?
Throughout my life, I have found writing to be a helpful process for dealing with life’s difficulties, but I had never written poetry. In fact I didn’t even read poetry that much. I thought it was too hard to understand and I’d rather have someone speak to me in plain English!

I was taking a class in Trauma Healing and our professor suggested we try writing our stories in less than 100 words. Her purpose was that we create literal ruts in our brains when we tell our story over and over in a certain way. So if we shrink the story way down, we have to tell it in a new way. We also find out what is really essential in our story.

So in an effort to create that 100 word story, I turned it into a poem—poems have fewer words than a paragraph of complete sentences. Plus they hold an emotional punch that is harder to achieve in a paragraph.

What caused you to pick up a camera and begin taking pictures?
I found that spending time in nature was comforting. I began to notice that nature is able to contain both pain and beauty simultaneously. I was sitting by a river when I noticed a bright red leaf dying on the rocks. Somehow I was comforted in feeling that nature “contained” my story. So I continued looking for the images that spoke to emotions within me—the wilting rose weighed down under the snow, a lonely white feather dropped on a road, green shoots forcing their way up through dry, brown leaves.

Where did you take most of your pictures at (I’m particularly mesmerized by the picture of a tree with Tangled Testimonies)?
The Weeping Beech with Tangled Testimonies is planted at a Jesuit retreat center in Wernersville, PA. Many photos were taken there. Others were taken on my brother-in-law’s farm in Virginia. Some are just taken in the back yard—where I had to be very exact about my angle in order to keep the surrounding buildings from obstructing a nature photo. How you focus and choose your frame that makes a great deal of difference in both photography and in life.

What settings do you recommend Poetry Readings of Seasons of Solace for?
I keep it pretty flexible so that it can fit most types of groups. I’ve given the poetry reading as a Sunday morning message, in small groups, at special programs for women’s groups. It can work in a variety of formats.

What other resources do you recommend for grieving persons?
Support groups are important. Counseling is a helpful resource to consider. There is also a growing number of websites that offer a variety of resources. My website http://www.journey-through-grief.com/ has articles to help people understand grief as well as suggestions for using memory books, poetry, photography, journaling and the Psalms of Lament to work through the grief journey.

Please be sure to stop by her web-site. She has created a place that holds a wealth of comfort for those who are grieving and those who know someone who is grieving. You can also find information about purchasing her book either for yourself or as a gift for someone else. Her website can be found at: http://www.journey-through-grief.com/.