Ellen Bass

“In spite of the horror, in spite of the tragedy, in spite of the weeks of sleepless nights, I'm finally alive. I'm…

— Ellen Bass

Garrison Keillor read several of my poems on 'The Writer's Almanac' and I've heard from listeners nationally and internationally. That's one of…

— Ellen Bass

“If You Knew What if you knew you'd be the last to touch someone? If you were taking tickets, for example, at…

— Ellen Bass

Allow yourself to release the emotions you have struggled all your life to contain.

— Ellen Bass

“The Aftermath When the fierce pure pleasure has clawed through, ripped open my tent of separateness, I lay in my lover's arms,…

— Ellen Bass

“Dead Butterfly By Ellen Bass For months my daughter carried a dead monarch in a quart mason jar. To and from school…

— Ellen Bass

If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care. But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth, the earth,…

— Ellen Bass

There is a comfort in knowing that you don’t have to pretend anymore, that you are going to do everything within your…

— Ellen Bass

Visualizing how you want to be is [an] effective way to move toward your goal.

— Ellen Bass

“Healing was a terrifying and painful experience and my life was as full of struggle and heartache as it had always been.…

— Ellen Bass

“The World Has Need Of You” everything here seems to need us —Rainer Maria Rilke I can hardly imagine it as I…

— Ellen Bass

Exercise stimulates your circulation, massages your internal organs, stretches and strengthens your muscles, and energizes you. Exercise is also a great way…

— Ellen Bass

I wanted to be a writer since I was in high school, but I never thought it was possible.

— Ellen Bass

Your wallet will be stolen, you'll get fat, slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel and crack your hip.

— Ellen Bass

What would people look like if we could see them as they are, soaked in honey, stung and swollen, reckless, pinned against…

— Ellen Bass

Poetry is the most intimate of all writing. I want to speak first from me to myself and then from me to…

— Ellen Bass

I think many people love poetry who don't know they love it. People are sometimes afraid of poetry, or they've been introduced…

— Ellen Bass

“Use excessive work or”

— Ellen Bass

“For girls who've been pressured into sex they didn't want, growing into a woman's body can be terrifying. Anorexia and bulimia can…

— Ellen Bass

Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say,…

— Ellen Bass

“ Gate C22 At gate C22 in the Portland airport a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed a woman arriving from…

— Ellen Bass

“Eating The Bones by Ellen Bass The women in my family strip the succulent flesh from broiled chicken, scrape the drumstick clean;…

— Ellen Bass

To love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it. when grief weights you like your own flesh…

— Ellen Bass

“You can look at my life and say there’ve been some real tragedies, and there have been. But there’ve also been some…

— Ellen Bass

“Deciding to actively heal is terrifying because it means opening up to hope. For many survivors, hope has brought only disappointment. Although…

— Ellen Bass