A Moment with Janine Canan

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

Ardor: Poems of Life (Pilgrims, Varanasi, 2012) is the most recent of my ten collections of poetry, and I believe the best. It has received good reviews and lots of excitement from like-minded souls. My author friend Linda Johnsen described it as “Inspiration dressed as a poet.” It contains poems about God, art, women, the earth, and the human condition. A new collection in the same vein is underway, Majesty. I have never felt more inspired than I do today.

What else do you have coming out?

Garland of Love, 108 meditations by the renowned Indian humanitarian Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma), will be available this Fall, 2013, at Amma.org and Amazon.com. A video by that name will appear on Utube simultaneously. In 2014, John Hunt’s Mantra Imprint in the United Kingdom will published a more substantial collection of Amma’s sayings & teachings: Love Is My Religion: Essential Teachings of Mata Amritanandamayi, also edited by myself.

You can stay in touch and find out more about my work, new and old, at Facebook and JanineCanan.com.

Long ago but unforgotten, an acquaintance said, “What is the point of this?” And then there was journal editor Michelle Cliff, whose words were so cruel I have completely repressed them. On the other hand, when the editor of another journal wrote: “Your poems have passion but lack form,” I was pushed to take a workshop with the poet Carolyn Kizer on revision which taught me a great deal about form.

Fortunately I have never had a really bad review. But of course any lengthy review will contain some criticism. I appreciate the fact that my work is not perfect and there is always something to criticize. Respectful criticism can often be quite useful.

I have already written a series of autobiographical stories entitled Journeys with Justine (Regent Press, Berkeley, 2007, illustrated by Cristina Biaggi). My essays are often quite autobiographical, as in Goddesses Goddesses: Essays by Janine Canan. And there is nothing more autobiographical or naked than poetry, which tells the story of the soul.

Names and titles are very important, and very magical. I feel very strongly about them.

The worst one is probably what happens to your back. The second may be seen as either a blessing or a hazard: long hours of solitude.

I love persimmons and bananas and berries and ripe figs. There is no one as generous as Mother Nature.

Only when I was arrested during a student protest at the University of California in Berkeley during the Sixties. For laughing loudly, I and my friends were put into solitary confinement, which was sobering. The bright overhead light bulb was never turned off, the toilet was a few feet away, and I spent the night reading the graffiti on the walls and the Bible (one always has the right to the Bible).

Since killing is wrong, I would bend over backwards to avoid it.

Fully aware of my own divinity and the divinity of all other beings.

Herbal tea or hot milk with nutmeg and honey.

Of course not.

Yes, all of them.

Rarely.

Cate Blanchett.

Remaining sane as a human being. And that entails strength of character, courage, humor, discrimination, hope, spiritual awareness, and a deep love of life.

No, I am trying to become more and more real.

Accepting that nobody cares.

The times when compassion fails me.

Yes. Gratitude to Google et al.

It has enormous bearing on all writers, indeed all people.

To work. And keep learning.

Sometimes gleefully.

Occasionally.

To transmit the important teachings; to add to the beauty of creation; to console; to entertain—in that order.

Probably not.

Not bad.

I do not think that it matters, I only hope so.

True love is divine love. Human love is always a disappointment. I have found plenty of both.

Death is always with us whether we know it or not. Fortunately, I have always had a friendly relationship with Death, who will transport us one day into that greater unknowable Realm.

Sometimes.

The pitiful condition of our world. The ever expanding ignorance of humanity. And I also cry when someone is truly human, able to tap into the extraordinary potential that we have been given as human beings.

I wish I could say myself.

The loveliest thing I have ever seen is the great soul Mata Amritanandmayi, who is called Amma, or Mother.

JANINE CANAN is the author of 20 books including the award-winning anthologies Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart and She Rises like the Sun: Invocations of the Goddess by Contemporary American Women Poets; acclaimed translations of two Belle Époque poets, Francis Jammes and Else Lasker-Schüler; two illustrated storybooks, Journeys with Justine and Walk Now in Beauty: The Legend of Changing Woman (part of the Navajo Literacy Project); a collection of essays, Goddesses Goddesses; and many volumes of poetry including Changing Woman, a Small Press Review pick, her NEA grant-recipient first book, Of Your Seed, and most recently, Ardor: Poems of Life. Janine lives in California, graduated from Stanford with distinction and NYU School of Medicine, is a psychiatrist and consultant for Indian humanitarian Mata Amritanandamayi. Her writing has appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies. For more information, visit JanineCanan.com or Facebook.