Adair V

August 3, 2018August 3, 2018Adair V

TANGO XIX: And kneeling at the edge of the transparent sea I shall shape for myself a new heart from salt and mud by Anne Carson

A wife is in the grip of being. Easy to say Why not give up on this? But let’s suppose your husband and a certain dark woman like to meet at a bar in early afternoon. Love is not conditional. Living is very conditional. The wife positions herself in an enclosed verandah across the […]

July 31, 2018July 31, 2018Adair V

Rediscovered: The Group Online Magazine

Each year, after the annual book fair in the quiet Swiss town of Romainmôtier, the artist Jan Reymond, in a wondrous use of second-hand books, creates an installation in honour of literature. The book fair is held at the town cathedral, a Romanesque structure that dates back to the fifth century. In past years, Reymond […]

July 25, 2018July 31, 2018Adair V

Rediscovered: “One cannot hide from the glare of one’s own writing”

I happened to stumble across this old article of mine from a few years ago. Since then, Arundhati Roy has published The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which is at the top of my reading tower. Take the case of Arundhati Roy. Her first novel, The God of Small Things, won the Man Booker Prize in 1997, which brought […]

July 22, 2018July 22, 2018Adair V

Triptych: poems by Anna Akhmatova

Lying in me Lying in me, as though it were a white Stone in the depths of a well, is one Memory that I cannot, will not, fight: It is happiness, and it is pain. Anyone looking straight into my eyes Could not help seeing it, and could not fail To become thoughtful, more sad […]

July 13, 2018July 11, 2018Adair V

Last Letter (by Ted Hughes)

Last Letter What happened that night? Your final night. Double, treble exposure Over everything. Late afternoon, Friday, My last sight of you alive. Burning your letter to me, in the ashtray, With that strange smile. Had I bungled your plan? Had it surprised me sooner than you purposed? Had I rushed it back to […]

July 10, 2018July 10, 2018Adair V

The Middle Way: Aligning research between Zen Buddhism and social psychology

The transformative power of both Buddhist spiritual practices and psychotherapy to work in a coordinated way to advance the psychological and spiritual development of an individual makes it important to find mechanisms by which to align Eastern and Western approaches.

June 18, 2018June 15, 2018Adair V

Vignette: Is there hope?

Therapist: Before we start, how would you characterize your relationship? Client: How would I characterize our relationship? Well, it’s pretty simple, really. One minute he’s loving and appreciative, the next he’s giving me the silent treatment. He feels entitled to preferential treatment because of who he is. He refuses to admit he’s wrong, because in […]

June 11, 2018June 9, 2018Adair V

Short Story: One Hundred Points

Day 1 Bathed in sweat, I wake before the explosion. I slowly register the four walls of my room and the dark stain on the ceiling in the outline of an egg, just visible in the morning light. In the shower, water cascades over my head and shoulders, down my back. I wonder whether […]

June 6, 2018June 6, 2018Adair V

Literary Arts interviews Adair V

This past January, I was thrilled to be awarded a 2018 Oregon Literary Fellowship. I’m using the award to finish my work Quantum Entanglements, which is a fiction-memoir-personal essay hybrid. The announcement was a happy shock and also a shot of adrenalin. I’ve used the time well and should have a finished manuscript in the […]

June 1, 2018June 2, 2018Adair V

Domestic violence, male entitlement, and our too-tolerant systems

There have been many recent news items about domestic violence, awful cases where men wipe out their families or drive down the street in peaceful Toronto mowing down women, aiming for them in particular because of an imagined grievance and a load of self-entitlement, terrible, terrible stories of abuse and murder. I thought it was […]