Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis

Women Writers Respond to the Call

Stephanie Raffelock

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9781647424909
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

Art keeps good alive in the worst of times. In the face of ugliness, pain, and death, it’s art that has the power to open us all to a healing imagining of new possibility; it’s art that whispers to the collective that even in the ashes of loss, life always grows again. That’s why right now, in this tumultuous time of war and pandemic, we need poets more than we need politicians. 

 In response to the multitude of global crises we’re currently experiencing, editor Stefanie Raffelock put out a much-needed call to her writing community for art to uplift and inform the world, and the authors of She Writes Press answered. Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis—a sometimes comforting, sometimes devastating, but universally relatable collection of prose, poetry, and art about living through difficult times like these—is the result. Addressing topics including grief and loss, COVID-19 and war in Ukraine, the gravity of need and being needed, the broad range of human response to crisis in all its forms, and more, these pieces explore how we can find beauty, hope, and deeper interpretation of world events through art—even when the world seems like it’s been turned inside out and upside-down. 

Proceeds: Our Commitment 

The collection of essays, poetry, and art in this book are meant to feed and nourish our hearts and minds. It’s what women do—we feed people. To that end, the proceeds from this work will be donated to the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, an organization conceived by chef José Andrés as a way to feed people affected by natural disasters and war.

World Central Kitchen financially supports food banks and restaurants that provide free food throughout the world.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction: Making Art While the World Appears to Fall Apart
• Believe
• Ode to Morphine
• Packing Essentials
• Blue
• Frankenstein’s Monster
• Do-Nothing Day
• Now Is the Time to Write a Sentence
• On an Orientation Toward Giving
• A Life in Six Wars
• It Is the Breaking Open
• All in This Together
• His Name Was Vinny
• To Become Such a People: Stories of a Shared Planet
• Let’s Go Eat Waffles
• The Tide Pool of Our Lives
• Creative Regenerating
• Prayer Poetry, Spring 2020
• Never Too Late
• The Awakening
• In a Time of Chaos
• What We Do with Words
• Great Loves Among Great Losses
• This Heavy World
• Gardening: A Poem for Helen
• Alvaro’s Desert Memorial to the Unknown
• Art as Light
• What We Have to Offer
• One Step at a Time
• Hope Blooms
• Oxygen
• She Gathered It All
• The Terrible, Terrible Tale of When Suspicious Met Betrayed, As Told by the Wise Owl
• Underneath the Heartbreak … There Is Love
• Art in a Time of Chaos
• Art Is the Antidote
• Poetry in the Time of Paradox
• Requiem for My Uncle
• Snow Falling on Ukraine
• Art Will Save Us All
• Dragonfly and Lotus
• The Act of Giving and Receiving Compassion
• The Artistry Within Us
• Be Beauty
• A Grandmother’s Love Story
• Beautiful Books
• The Great Reckoning
• Bombs Away
• Breathing Ukraine
• Don’t Tell My Husband I’m Lonely
• Being Held in Deep Grief and Unbearable Beauty
• The Comfort of Art and Routine
• The Gift of No Escape
• The Borneo Challenge
• Connections
• Embracing Grief Might Be Just What We Need
• Hand of Sorrow
• Music of the Heart
• Fighting the Boogeyman
• Time
• Finding Home
• Flight
• Hope from Simple Fruit
• Gentrified
• What to Say to Ridiculous People in Unbearable Situations
• Her Name Is Natasha
• I Wrote My Will Last Night
• Hearts in the Storm
• Knitting My Way Through
• Let It Go
• Lullaby and Good Night
• Mosaic
• A Psychiatrist-Novelist’s Recommendations for Creativity as a Stress Antidote
• Musings on the Word “Atonement”
• My High-Risk Pandemic: A Love Story
• 2020: What Was and What Will Be
• Y’all Need to Chill
• War Music
• You Must Laugh When Nothing Is Funny
• Acknowledgments
• Selected Titles from She Writes Press
• Back Cover