Biography/Selected Bibliography
A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Norman Fischer has been publishing poetry since 1979. Loosely associated with the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets of the seventies and eighties, he maintains close creative and personal relationships with many writers from that movement. Fischer spent five years living at Tassajara Zen Monastery in monastic Buddhist practice where poets Jane Hirshfield and Phillip Whalen were fellow students. He enjoyed a particularly close relationship to Phillip Whalen whom Norman describes in the dedication of his book Slowly But Dearly as a fellow “poet, Zen priest, teacher, friend.” Norman is Philip Whalen’s literary executor.
Fischer holds an MFA from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a masters from the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a Zen Buddhist priest for nearly 30 years, serving as abbot for the San Francisco Zen Center from 1995-2000. Founder and teacher of the Everyday Zen Foundation, he is one of the most highly respected Zen teachers in America, regularly leading Zen Buddhist retreats and events. Fischer frequently leads conferences that integrate Buddhist contemplative practices in business, law, for caregivers of the dying, software engineers, Jewish meditators and conflict resolution specialists. More recently, he worked for the US Army teaching mindfulness practices to chaplains. Norman periodically leads creative writing workshops and gives poetry readings. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Stanford universities.
As is the case with most engaged writers who have published much over many years, Fischer’s work has changed over time and defies easy definitions. Fischer rejects the idea of his poetry as an expression or confession emanating from a unified and knowing self. “There’s no self or person, just what arises...writing is words, how they sound, how they look lying on the page.” Fischer’s poetry traces a consciousness well aware, albeit often enough puzzled, by the ever changing conditions of self/ other/ environment/ language. His writing reminds us of the idea that language is at once an avenue of imprisonment and liberation, and we may never be altogether certain which. There is a consistent mood of uncertainty, wonder and playfulness to his work, a heuristic quality as noted in his poem I’ve Changed: “This word/ I wanted to fondle / That I threw out into the world / That never had a meaning or referent / Except to stand for all I do not know and fear / Now I can feel what it wanted to tell me.”
In the introduction to his collection, I Was Blown Back, Fischer writes of feeling for a long time that his poetry and religious practice were quite separate, but how after a while he noticed that he was unintentionally writing about intimate religious experience. Perhaps it is the religious influence that accounts for the great warmth, even kindness of tone, within a body of writing that never disavows sharp intelligence, inquiry and direct critique. As one of the most prominent voices in Zen Buddhism today, as well as a theoretically informed and accomplished poet in contemporary letters, Fischer’s work offers a rich terrain for investigation into the meeting of post-post-modern and Buddhist/religious poetics.
In addition to numerous poetry publications, Fischer frequently publishes in Buddhist magazines and is on the advisory board of BuddhaDharma magazine. His essays have been anthologized many times, and have been included in every annual edition of Best Buddhist Writing (Shambala). He has authored a Zen translation of the Psalms, Opening to You (Viking Compass, 2002) two books on spirituality, Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up (HarperSF, 2003) and Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls (Free Press, 2008). Norman is the father of grown twin sons, both of whom live in Brooklyn. His son Noah is a well-respected conceptual artist whose painting Glam not War provides the cover image for Norman’s collection I Was Blown Back. His son Aron is an attorney working in Manhattan. Norman lives with his wife, Kathie, a Buddhist priest, science instructor and expert diver, in a sunny house with a vegetable garden on a cliff overlooking the Pacific in Muir Beach, California.
Selected Bibliograhy
Norman Fischer has published fourteen books of essays and poetry: A Far and Permanent Lid (Bezoar magazine, 1979), like a walk through a park (Open Books, 1980), Why People Lack Confidence In Chairs (Coffee House Press, 1984), On Whether or Not To Believe In Your Mind (The Figures, 1987), The Devices (Potes & Poets Press, 1987), Turn Left In Order To Go Right (O Books, 1989), Precisely The Point Being Made (O Books/Chax Press 1993), Jerusalem Moonlight (Clear Glass Publications, 1995), The Narrow Roads of Japan (Ex Nihilo Press 1998), Success (Singing Horse Press, 2000), Slowly but Dearly (Chax Press, 2004), I Was Blown Back (Singing Horse Press 2005) Charlotte’s Way (TinFish 2008), Questions/Voices/Places/Seasons (Singing Horse Press 2009).
Fischer’s poetry has been anthologized in The Wisdom Anthology of North American Poetry, Basta Azzez enough, and many literary magazines including Periodics, Mag City, Your Stuff, Bezoar, Rocky Ledge, Hills, Raddle Moon, Facture, Tin Fish, Nocturnes (Re)view, Bombay Gin, Gallery Works, Antenym and Crayon among others.
Fischer has published one translation and two books: Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms (Viking Compass 2002), Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up (Harper Collins, 2003) and Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls (Free Press, 2008).
Fischer is a primary contributor to Benedict’s Dharma: Buddhists Reflect on the Rule of Saint Benedict, edited by Patrick Henry (Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, 2001).
Fischer has published numerous essays on Buddhism and religion in Buddhadharma, Turning Wheel, The Sun, Shambala Sun, Tricycle and Inquiring Mind. Please visit the archives at these magazine’s websites to find and read these essays.
Summer 2010
Monica Heredia
