Bird That Wants to Fly
Story by Diane Kaufman
Illustrations by Olya Kalatsei
The Bird That Wants to Fly book is available at Amazon.com in print and kindle editions, and also available on many other online sites. With gratitude to Roven Records http://www.rovenrecords.com/, the opera with the story narrated by the actor Danny Glover is available on audible.com: http://www.audible.com/pd/Self-Development/Bird-That-Wants-to-Fly-Audiobook/B0193PKJD0 as well as many other venues, including iTunes!
The Bird That Wants to Fly illustrations by Olya Kalatsei are heart rendering. For bulk book purchases, please contact Dr. Kaufman for a reduced fee. A companion instructional resource guide for using the book with children pre-K thru 8th grade to cultivate student knowledge of literacy, social emotional growth, social studies and creative expression is also available. For additional information see below.
Dr. Kaufman is available to facilitate Creative Healing Workshops on Bird That Wants to Fly utilizing her artistic skills integrating a "cognitive poetic therapy" approach that incorporates myth, art and writing within a nurturing community to support recovery from trauma by means of creative expression and clarity of thinking. Please contact Dr. Kaufman at artsmedicine@hotmail.com to learn more and to schedule a workshop.
Click on the button below for the Bird That Wants to Fly facebook page. Please also see below to learn about the Companion Instructional Resource Guide and to view The Bird That Wants to Fly Children's Opera. To see more of Dr. Kaufman's creative works, please scroll down the page.
Story by Diane Kaufman
Illustrations by Olya Kalatsei
The Bird That Wants to Fly book is available at Amazon.com in print and kindle editions, and also available on many other online sites. With gratitude to Roven Records http://www.rovenrecords.com/, the opera with the story narrated by the actor Danny Glover is available on audible.com: http://www.audible.com/pd/Self-Development/Bird-That-Wants-to-Fly-Audiobook/B0193PKJD0 as well as many other venues, including iTunes!
The Bird That Wants to Fly illustrations by Olya Kalatsei are heart rendering. For bulk book purchases, please contact Dr. Kaufman for a reduced fee. A companion instructional resource guide for using the book with children pre-K thru 8th grade to cultivate student knowledge of literacy, social emotional growth, social studies and creative expression is also available. For additional information see below.
Dr. Kaufman is available to facilitate Creative Healing Workshops on Bird That Wants to Fly utilizing her artistic skills integrating a "cognitive poetic therapy" approach that incorporates myth, art and writing within a nurturing community to support recovery from trauma by means of creative expression and clarity of thinking. Please contact Dr. Kaufman at artsmedicine@hotmail.com to learn more and to schedule a workshop.
Click on the button below for the Bird That Wants to Fly facebook page. Please also see below to learn about the Companion Instructional Resource Guide and to view The Bird That Wants to Fly Children's Opera. To see more of Dr. Kaufman's creative works, please scroll down the page.
Companion Instructional Resource Guide to Bird That Wants to Fly
by Wendy A. Bundgaard, M.Ed
This educational guide has artistically aligned lesson approaches, paradigms, and individual task assessments meeting Common Core Standards and Core Content Standards. Bird That Wants to Fly is a trauma informed resource that can benefit prekindergarten - 8th grade students in developing knowledge and skills of creative expression, visual & performing arts, literacy, and social studies. The story uniquely addresses themes of violence, bullying, depression, self esteem, healing relationships, and recovery using archetypal symbols and mythology such as Pegasus (the flying horse), the Phoenix Bird, and the Hero's Journey.
Cracking Up and Back Again:
Transformation Through Poetry
by Diane Kaufman
Poetry Speaks
Poetry is silence before words
Poetry is born from the unspoken
Poetry is breath in, pause, exhale
Poetry is one voice expressing to be heard
Poetry created and creates the world
Poetry speaks and says all
"As a physician and poet, I believe that psychiatry is in danger of limiting understanding of being human to a sum total of chemical parts, when its exclusive focus is on the body. Poetry illuminates the deeper human being. Poets, since the beginning of time, have expressed and recorded the yearnings of the human spirit. Poets are fellow travelers, and poetry is life's consciousness captured on paper, still wanting and able to be seen, heard, and felt. Poetry can help guide us through life's terrors and wonders, as we, too, contemplate our place in this world..." (from introduction). Cracking Up and Back Again received a positive review in Arts in Psychotherapy, 2008, 35 (2). If interested in purchase for individual and/or group use, please contact Dr. Kaufman directly by email. This book was successfully implemented at Integrity House, a residential substance abuse treatment program in Newark, New Jersey. It can be easily utilized with music therapy. A companion expressive arts curriculum is also available.
Missing Mommy
Story by Diane Kaufman
Illustrations by Hadley Hutton
Written as a healing story for one special little many years ago, Missing Mommy is now dedicated to all children everywhere. A little girl named Layla yearns to see her deceased mother again. She has a magic dream in which she flies on the back of a bird to see her mother. When she awakens, Layla is so happy! She asks her grandmother if it really happened. Her grandmother answers her question with a poem about love. The story was inspired by a little girl whom I had met whose mother had been murdered. The illustrations by Hadley Hutton are breathtaking. Missing Mommy is available on Amazon.com.
Story by Diane Kaufman
Illustrations by Hadley Hutton
Written as a healing story for one special little many years ago, Missing Mommy is now dedicated to all children everywhere. A little girl named Layla yearns to see her deceased mother again. She has a magic dream in which she flies on the back of a bird to see her mother. When she awakens, Layla is so happy! She asks her grandmother if it really happened. Her grandmother answers her question with a poem about love. The story was inspired by a little girl whom I had met whose mother had been murdered. The illustrations by Hadley Hutton are breathtaking. Missing Mommy is available on Amazon.com.
In Memory of the Future: A Poem Performance on the Newtown, Connecticut killings
Poem by Diane Kaufman
Performed by Newark Arts High School students
All There Is
by Diane Kaufman and Ms. H.
This poem was inspired by a conversation I had with a patient's mother as she described her own mother's illness. I was so moved by what she said that I asked her if I could create the experience of what she had shared into a poem. She said "yes, if it could also help someone else." Indeed it has, many times over. The opening of the poem are words directly spoken by Ms. H. The rest of the poem is my rendering of what she had shared. I felt the poem was so poignant and beautiful that I wanted it to be done in calligraphy. I gave the poem as a work of art to Ms. H. who shared it with her mother and family. The poem, as a prayer flag, has also been on national and international exhibition with the San Diego Cancer Research Institute's Hope Made Visible project.
Questions to a Child
by Diane Kaufman
I wrote the poem, Questions to a Child, walking home from the train station in the rain. I was crying. That was the day I learned that a young boy in our Therapeutic Nursery Program was being abused in his current foster home, after his already having experiencing so much loss, so much pain, and so much lack of love in his young life. My heart cried out in pain for him. The artist, Paul Anderson, painted a mother, child and an empty heart space to bring the poem to life. In his generosity, Paul Anderson donated the artwork he created. The poetry poster is a muted brown and white color. It is painfully beautiful.
by Diane Kaufman
I wrote the poem, Questions to a Child, walking home from the train station in the rain. I was crying. That was the day I learned that a young boy in our Therapeutic Nursery Program was being abused in his current foster home, after his already having experiencing so much loss, so much pain, and so much lack of love in his young life. My heart cried out in pain for him. The artist, Paul Anderson, painted a mother, child and an empty heart space to bring the poem to life. In his generosity, Paul Anderson donated the artwork he created. The poetry poster is a muted brown and white color. It is painfully beautiful.
America's Children Are Singing
by Diane Kaufman
I wrote this poem when I was Medical Director of Preschool Services. So many of the children had been abused. I was practicing Siddha Yoga meditation and was at an ashram in upstate New York. I had just finished meditating and went into their beautiful bookstore, and came upon the book for children by Robert Sabuda on Walt Whitman's poem, "I Hear America Singing." As if in a trance, and while still standing in the bookstore, the poem, "America's Children Are Singing" poured out of me. The poem was blessed by the guru and in 1997 became the benediction poem for the New Jersey Share Our Strength Literary fundraiser. The poem later become the inspiration for the amazing "I Hear My Community Singing"Evening Poetry Recital for 7th and 8th grade students at Hawkins Street School in Newark, NJ.
by Diane Kaufman
I wrote this poem when I was Medical Director of Preschool Services. So many of the children had been abused. I was practicing Siddha Yoga meditation and was at an ashram in upstate New York. I had just finished meditating and went into their beautiful bookstore, and came upon the book for children by Robert Sabuda on Walt Whitman's poem, "I Hear America Singing." As if in a trance, and while still standing in the bookstore, the poem, "America's Children Are Singing" poured out of me. The poem was blessed by the guru and in 1997 became the benediction poem for the New Jersey Share Our Strength Literary fundraiser. The poem later become the inspiration for the amazing "I Hear My Community Singing"Evening Poetry Recital for 7th and 8th grade students at Hawkins Street School in Newark, NJ.
Poem of Remembrance
by Diane Kaufman
On the first anniversary of 9/11, Poem of Remembrance was written. It is on permanent display at the 9/11 Memorial Site in Springfield, NJ. The poem was read aloud at the memorial ceremony.
More to Come...
Dr. Kaufman will be adding much more to this page of her creative works done past, present and into the future.
by Diane Kaufman
On the first anniversary of 9/11, Poem of Remembrance was written. It is on permanent display at the 9/11 Memorial Site in Springfield, NJ. The poem was read aloud at the memorial ceremony.
More to Come...
Dr. Kaufman will be adding much more to this page of her creative works done past, present and into the future.