Whitney Hanson is an author I keep returning to. Her poetry is thoughtful and invites introspection. While her work doesn’t inspire a deep, soul-searching response in me, I do find myself pausing to consider what I read, often rereading and highlighting as I go. She makes me think about my own thoughts from a different angle, sometimes answering long-held questions. I recognize some of my own feelings in her work as well. As a person living with major depressive disorder, I empathized with her statement that “the worst part about having a sickness that/ exists only within my head isn’t that no/ one else can see it. it’s that i can’t see it/ either.”
I am reminded that I am deserving of self-love when Hanson writes “the circle will only cease when i learn to/ forgive myself, when i can accept that i will/ never be perfect when i surrender in a war/ where the enemy is me;” and she gives everyone the valuable advice that “maybe getting better isn’t a cosmic shift it’s/ just waking up every day and trying.”
I also relate to her thoughts about writing: “ […] i transform feeling/ into words i make my agony two/ dimensional so that it doesn’t hurt. it’s my/ magic.” I find catharsis in writing, as I am sure so many other writers do. Reading Whitney Hanson’s writing is like meeting a friend for coffee and a long heart to heart: comforting, safe, inviting you to unburden yourself without fear of judgement or abandonment. I have recommended her books to friends that don’t read poetry, because I knew they needed to hear what she had to say to them.