Surviving Has Made Me Crazy

Poet and philosopher Mark Nepo was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma in 1987. His journey back to health awakened a new life. In his latest book, Nepo explores how sacred and useful everything is. As such, this book is for everyone, not just for those facing illness or pursuing poetry. The poems affirm that surviving has more to do with our authenticity than our longevity. The sixty-eight poems gathered here are the culmination of many years of inquiry. As a teacher, Nepo has journeyed with others around these themes across the country and abroad. In leading spiritual retreats, in working with healing and medical communities, and in his teaching as a poet, his work is widely accessible and used by many.

Mark Nepo has moved and inspired readers and seekers all over the world. Beloved as a poet, teacher, and storyteller, Mark has been called “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time.” A #1 New York Times bestselling author, his twenty-two books (Including 2007’s Surviving Has Made Me Crazy) and fifteen audio projects have been translated into over twenty languages. Mark has appeared with Oprah Winfrey on her Super Soul Sunday program on OWN TV. In 2015, he was given a Life-Achievement Award by AgeNation. And in 2016, he was named by Watkins: Mind Body Spirit as one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People.

The Dream of Healing

I rest in a circle of those still here, all of
us humbled, each taking a turn telling
the story of what has fallen away.

A woman in her thirties is speaking
of her cancer. I wince to hear of the
intravenous treatments. But suddenly,
she says it was those who came before
who were pumped into our veins.
It was this that saved us.

Somehow, I know who these spirits
are. I see their faces. They are people I
have loved, some no longer here: Nur,
John, Grandma, Jane. I start to weep
to think they’re in our veins.

Our weeping turns the needles into
laurel leaves. She sprinkles them
on our faces.

Mark Nepo’s poems leech medicine from deep within each wound. They calibrate our heart’s careful attention so we may witness the reassuring alchemy that enables illness to live as healing; where brokenness emerges as wholeness. And most importantly, we feel how darkness, deliberately saturated with precise and loving awareness, can actually become light.
— Wayne Muller

Mark Nepo’s poems challenge us to consider the therapeutic possibilities of language. Heart to heart, soul to soul . . . Nepo takes us on an unforgettable healing journey, revising medicalized pathology reports and their dire prognoses into a deeply humane narrative of suffering, forgiveness, and ultimately triumph. Surviving Has Made Me Crazy—yes, for love, for life, and for the unthinkable prospect of solace and peace.
— Raphael Campo

Mark Nepo is a Great Soul. His resonant heart—his frank and astonishing voice befriend us mightily on this mysterious trail. These are words to live with, by and among—with deepest gratitude.
— Naomi Shihab Nye

Setting down this new volume of Mark Nepo’s poetry, I feel a cascade of sensations: hollowness in the belly, as if I am falling down and through, warmth circulating in the chest, a prior-to-speech pulsing in the throat. Together, in intimate accord, these poems offer articulate revelations about life, about being human, about what is most often left unexamined, unspoken, and therefore left unknown. This book is unrelenting, thrilling, achingly rough, palpable . . . a portal filled with life . . . to which I bow.
— Saki Santorelli

February 2007
148 pp
Trade paper – 6 X 9.25
$18
ISBN 978-1-933880-01-3
LaurelBooks