Who I am.

I write about the landscape of grief, nature, and the wisdom of fools. The author of four books, my essays, poems, and reviews have been published in over 50 journals, including in the Huffington Post and Colorado Review. I’ve won the River Teeth Nonfiction Book Award, the Chautauqua and Literal Latte’s essay prizes, and my work has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and named a notable by Best American Essays. My account of hiking in Yosemite to deal with my wife’s death, Mountains of Light, was published by the University of Nebraska Press. http://www.markliebenow.com.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Halloween and Holy Days

For a number of years, Halloween was a chore. I felt pressure to buy decorations, dress up in a ghoulish costume, ooh and aah over neighborhood children who came to the door being cute, and eat whatever candy was left over.

In society’s push to make money out of everything, including death, in our costumed depictions of violent and gory ways to die, in our attempts to downplay the traumatic realities of grief, we do disservice to our dead, especially if they died because of an act of violence.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

No comments:

Post a Comment