James Crews is the author of THE PATH TO KINDNESS – a collection offering more than 100 poems of connection and joy from a diverse range of voices…including a poem by the current U.S. Poet Laureate – Joy Harjo. He has also authored 4 prize-winning collections of poetry and is the editor of the best-selling anthology, HOW TO LOVE THE WORLD – more than 90,000 copies in print and featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, in Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. Crews' work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun Magazine, Ploughshares, and The New Republic, as well as in former US poet laureate Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry newspaper column.

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Website: jamescrews.net
Book: The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy by James Crews and Danusha Laméris

Most Influential Person

Ted Kooser

Effect on Emotions

I'm able to name the emotions. However, I think it wasn't ever the case before. Likewise, anxiety and shame. It's so useful to be able to name what's coming up and to really distinguish. My marriage has helped with that, too.

Thoughts on Breathing

Most importantly, the kind of meditation I do tends to really focus on the breath.
I usually, when I'm meditating, have a very busy mind. For instance, I count my breaths, you know, one in-breath, out-breath, one in-breath, out-breath two, and do that in sets of fours, when I'm especially caught in my mind and my thoughts.

Suggested Resources

Book: Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems by Phyllis Cole-Dai
Book: The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy by James Crews and Danusha Laméris
App: Headspace

Bullying Story

Firstly, I was never really the recipient of a lot of bullying. I think that was the result of real efforts that were not very healthy to kind of hide myself and be as invisible as possible, and to be quiet.
I was already shy and introverted, but I think I made myself even quieter, and really tried to blend in, and not call attention to who I really was, or what I really loved doing.
Therefore, I don't have a lot of stories about that as a kid. I will say one memory that came when you talked about bullying; it's not quite the same thing, but when I was in grad school in Nebraska, I was walking down the street, and just feeling really happy. I was really embodying who I was at that point, teaching poetry, writing poetry, not being afraid to dress a certain way.
As I was walking down the street to the pharmacy, and these guys in a pickup truck that was passing by called out these terrible names, just like these anti-gay epithets and I sort of stopped for a minute, but then, didn't want to engage or anything like that. But when I got home, I realized how much that affected me.
That is to say, I was more in tune with that, probably because I had been meditating and was really practicing mindfulness. But it really disturbed me. And not just that I had to experience it, but that other people, especially younger people, were probably experiencing that all over the country and the world at the very same moment.

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