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LISTEN: John Willison On Facing Death And Appreciating The Beauty Of Life

Courtesy John Willison
John Willison says his wife, Pauline, encouraged him to start writing poetry.

John Willison started writing poetry a couple of years ago, after his cancer metastasized. His wife, Pauline, encouraged him to join a writing group at Turning Point, a center with programs for people with chronic and serious illness.

The writing group is led by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, a former poet laureate of Kansas. Willison says his poems reflect the nature of his journey from treatment, to grief, to “deep gratitude and awareness of the beauty of this life, the natural world, and the connectedness of all things.”

More of Willison's poems, along with bonus tracks by our other poets, are archived  onSoundCloud.

A free press is among our country’s founding principles and most precious resources. As director of content-journalism at KCUR, I want everyone in our part of America to know we see them and we’re listening. I work to make sure the stories we tell and the conversations we convene reflect our complex realities, informing and inspiring all of us to meet the profound challenges of our time. Email me at cj@kcur.org.
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