Published Works
“To be a poet is a way of being in the world. It is a way of seeing and of attending the reality which otherwise disappears behind the proverbial curtain. When I am fortunate enough to be one with my poet self, it is like living in the Sabbath when, we are told, we are given a second soul. The act of living as a poet is primary, the writing is secondary, that is, part of, but not the entirety, of the poetic process. I am drawn to write the poem, now as much as ever, if not more so, as a way of making the invisible world, the most real world, manifest. If that world were to disappear, then everything I value, love and understand would go with it.” – Deena Metzger, West Word 2, Winter/Spring 1990.
Books
- La Vieja: A Journal of Fire (novel) 2022
- The Burden of Light (poems) 2019
- A Rain of Night Birds (novel) 2017
- La Negra y Blanca (novel) 2011
- Feral (novel) 2011
- Ruin and Beauty: New and Selected Poems 2009
- From Grief into Vision: A Council 2006
- Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn 2005
- Entering the Ghost River 2002
- The Other Hand 2000
- Intimate Nature 1998
- A Sabbath Among the Ruins 1992
- Tree: Essays and Pieces includes: The Woman Who Slept with Men to Take the War out of Them 1997
- Writing for Your Life: A Guide and Companion to the Inner Worlds 1992
- What Dinah Thought 1989
- Looking for the Faces of God 1989
- The Axis Mundi Poems 1981
- Dark Milk 1978
- Skin Shadows / Silence 1976
Plays
- Dreams Against the State
- The Book of Hags – The Book of Hags by Deena Metzger, adapted and directed by Everett Frost. Dramatic radio adaptation of a novel in progress.
Broadcast KPFK Pacifica radio, May 27, 1976. - Not As Sleepwalkers
Tapes
Anthologies
- Landscape of Soul & Story, 12 Writers Journey to Ireland in 2012 by Holly Metz. With poems, photographs and a Foreword by Deena Metzger, re-imagines the Shaman Bard. “Let me tell you some stories. In Ireland, that would be the voice of the Shaman Bard. We don’t know if it is the shaman speaking as a poet storyteller or the poet is speaking as a shaman (healer, visionary diviner, historian, myth-teller, peacemaker); they are entirely intertwined and it has been so for thousands of years and was so when I was there this month…”
- Sisters Singing: Blessings, Prayers, Art, Songs, Poetry and Sacred Stories by Women. Edited by Carolyn Brigit Flynn, Foreword with poems by Deena Metzger. Click here to purchase.
- Consciousness In Action: The Power Of Beauty, Love And Courage In … – Google Books – Andrew Beath – 2005 – Philosophy
Inspiring stories by JULIA BUTTERFLY HILL, JOANNA MACY, SHIVA REA, PETER LEVITT, JOHN MACK, DEENA METZGER, BARBARA MARX HUBBARD - Tanzania Safari: Future Guardians of Peace, with an original essay Alliance in the Selous by Deena Metzger
In Liberia, where the ngo everyday gandhis works with former child soldiers, ex combatants and other war-affected people, the elephant is considered an avatar of peace. In the last year, as part of her work as senior advisor to the peacebuilding organization, Deena Metzger accompanied a group of these young ex-combatants on a photo safari into Tanzania so they could see the wild in its own place and on its own terms, the wild destroyed by civil war in their own country. The elephants came and the trip into the Selous was a journey in healing fear; a journey told in their own words and pictures and with her original essay “Alliance in the Selous” in the book TANZANIA SAFARI: FUTURE GUARDIANS OF PEACE published this year by everyday gandhis.
This exquisite photography book documents a part of the transformation of former child soldiers and war-affected youth into peacemakers who call themselves Future Guardians of Peace. Their journey unfolds as they forge deep connections with the natural world on safari and face fears and find ways of peacemaking in soccer games in a Masaai village. Every photo was taken by these Future Guardians of Peace, who have learned to see anew through the lens of cameras and their healing journey.
Tanzania Safari: Future Guardians of Peace is now available from everyday gandhis, 805-966-9300. - The Well of Creativity edited by Michael Toms
New Dimensions radio-host Michael Toms explores the subject of creativity with six specialists: Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way), Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones), Deena Metzger (Writing for Your Life), composer-musician Keith Jarrett, author Isabel Allende, and psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihályi. - See Bibliography for full listing