WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.259 Welcome in. It is so great to have you here with 00:00:03.259 --> 00:00:06.700 us today for a brand new deep dive. Yeah, really 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:09.990 glad you could join us. We have a... truly remarkable 00:00:09.990 --> 00:00:12.769 set of sources lined up for you we're primarily 00:00:12.769 --> 00:00:15.330 looking at a comprehensive wikipedia article 00:00:15.330 --> 00:00:19.789 detailing the life the career and just the the 00:00:19.789 --> 00:00:23.250 profound creative evolution of rachel eliza griffiths 00:00:23.250 --> 00:00:24.910 right and it's a fascinating evolution to look 00:00:24.910 --> 00:00:26.829 at it really is and we are bringing you this 00:00:26.829 --> 00:00:29.089 deep dive with a very specific mission in mind 00:00:29.089 --> 00:00:32.329 today we want to explore how a truly adaptable 00:00:32.329 --> 00:00:35.189 mind translates the human experience across entirely 00:00:35.189 --> 00:00:38.009 different mediums and you know more importantly 00:00:38.009 --> 00:00:39.740 what you can learn from her approach when it 00:00:39.740 --> 00:00:41.780 comes to processing life's absolute biggest, 00:00:42.020 --> 00:00:45.159 most overwhelming moments. Because to call Griffith 00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:47.560 just a writer would be, well, it'd be a massive 00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:49.820 understatement. Oh, absolutely. She is this true 00:00:49.820 --> 00:00:52.719 creative force, a poet, a novelist, a photographer, 00:00:52.979 --> 00:00:55.899 a visual artist, and a memoirist. That versatility 00:00:55.899 --> 00:00:58.420 is really the core of what we are looking at 00:00:58.420 --> 00:01:01.659 today. We aren't just tracing a bibliography 00:01:01.659 --> 00:01:04.000 or a timeline of publications. Right. It's bigger 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.939 than that. Exactly. This deep dive is fundamentally 00:01:06.939 --> 00:01:09.819 about the intersection of art, resilience, and 00:01:09.819 --> 00:01:12.159 the sheer power of changing your lens, sometimes 00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:14.159 literally changing your lens when looking at 00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:17.359 the world. Yeah. When you examine her life, you 00:01:17.359 --> 00:01:20.439 see someone who absolutely refuses to be confined 00:01:20.439 --> 00:01:23.400 by a single mode of expression. If a feeling 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:28.260 or a trauma or a memory is just too big for a 00:01:28.260 --> 00:01:31.319 poem, she picks up a camera. If it's too expansive 00:01:31.319 --> 00:01:34.219 for a photograph, she writes a novel. Okay, let's 00:01:34.219 --> 00:01:36.200 unpack this by going right back to the beginning 00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:38.459 to see where that kind of adaptable foundation 00:01:38.459 --> 00:01:41.959 actually comes from. So Rachel Eliza Griffiths 00:01:41.959 --> 00:01:43.959 was born in Washington, D .C. in December of 00:01:43.959 --> 00:01:47.480 1978. She's the eldest of four children, and 00:01:47.480 --> 00:01:49.659 the details of her parents' professions provide 00:01:49.659 --> 00:01:52.079 this really fascinating contrast that seems to 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:54.879 inform, well, so much of what she does later 00:01:54.879 --> 00:01:57.340 on. It really does. Her mother, Michelle, was 00:01:57.340 --> 00:01:59.739 a community organizer and a former police officer, 00:01:59.959 --> 00:02:02.280 and her father, Norman, was an environmental 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:05.569 lawyer. What's fascinating here is how that specific 00:02:05.569 --> 00:02:08.509 parental dynamic shapes an artist's worldview 00:02:08.509 --> 00:02:10.889 from day one. I mean, think about what those 00:02:10.889 --> 00:02:13.289 two distinct worlds represent. On one side, you 00:02:13.289 --> 00:02:15.969 have an environmental lawyer. That is a career 00:02:15.969 --> 00:02:19.030 built entirely on navigating complex legal structures, 00:02:19.310 --> 00:02:22.389 statutes, and systemic rules just to protect 00:02:22.389 --> 00:02:25.969 the physical world. It requires this highly analytical, 00:02:26.150 --> 00:02:29.710 rigid adherence to codes. Very structured. Exactly. 00:02:29.789 --> 00:02:32.310 Very structured. On the other side, you have 00:02:32.310 --> 00:02:34.189 a mother who spent her time as a police officer 00:02:34.189 --> 00:02:37.289 and a community organizer. That represents a 00:02:37.289 --> 00:02:41.349 deep, messy engagement with civic duty, grassroots 00:02:41.349 --> 00:02:43.430 human connection. Yeah, the on -the -ground stuff. 00:02:43.530 --> 00:02:46.349 The immediate, uncodified realities of a neighborhood's 00:02:46.349 --> 00:02:49.810 daily life. The dichotomy there is just striking. 00:02:49.949 --> 00:02:52.430 You have the rigid rules of law from her father 00:02:52.430 --> 00:02:54.969 and then the fluid human -centric realities of 00:02:54.969 --> 00:02:57.569 community organizing from her mother. Growing 00:02:57.569 --> 00:02:59.949 up in a household so deeply focused on societal 00:02:59.949 --> 00:03:02.550 structures and civic responsibility, it really 00:03:02.550 --> 00:03:04.349 seems to have given her this intimate understanding 00:03:04.349 --> 00:03:06.909 of how boundaries work. She learned the rules 00:03:06.909 --> 00:03:08.990 so well that she eventually figured out how to 00:03:08.990 --> 00:03:11.110 break almost every structural boundary in her 00:03:11.110 --> 00:03:14.699 own work. Yeah, she essentially takes... the 00:03:14.699 --> 00:03:17.479 idea of structure and completely bends it to 00:03:17.479 --> 00:03:19.620 her will. But the thing is, she didn't just start 00:03:19.620 --> 00:03:21.819 breaking rules immediately. No, not at all. She 00:03:21.819 --> 00:03:23.719 spent a long time mastering them first. Yeah, 00:03:23.780 --> 00:03:26.240 her educational background really reflects that 00:03:26.240 --> 00:03:29.379 deep commitment to mastering traditional structures. 00:03:29.719 --> 00:03:32.020 She graduated from St. Mark's High School, then 00:03:32.020 --> 00:03:33.819 went to the University of Delaware, where she 00:03:33.819 --> 00:03:36.020 earned both her undergraduate degree and her 00:03:36.020 --> 00:03:39.039 first master's degree. Then she pursued an MFA 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:41.300 in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:44.110 which is... I mean, it's highly regarded in the 00:03:44.110 --> 00:03:46.550 literary world. And the source material highlights 00:03:46.550 --> 00:03:49.189 that she was awarded just a massive array of 00:03:49.189 --> 00:03:51.069 fellowships along the way. A really impressive 00:03:51.069 --> 00:03:53.729 list. We are talking about the Cave Canem Foundation, 00:03:54.250 --> 00:03:57.189 Kimbilio, the Millet Colony, the Vermont Studio 00:03:57.189 --> 00:04:00.189 Center, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, 00:04:00.389 --> 00:04:03.409 the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and Yaddo. 00:04:03.800 --> 00:04:05.939 And when you hear names like Yaddo or the Cage 00:04:05.939 --> 00:04:08.740 Canem Foundation, it is so important to understand 00:04:08.740 --> 00:04:11.340 what those spaces actually represent. They aren't 00:04:11.340 --> 00:04:14.400 just lines on a resume. No, not at all. These 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:16.920 are the most prestigious, rigorous incubators 00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:19.660 for generational talent in the country. Cave 00:04:19.660 --> 00:04:22.019 Canem, for instance, is absolutely foundational 00:04:22.019 --> 00:04:24.459 for nurturing African -American poetic voices. 00:04:25.060 --> 00:04:27.620 While places like Yaddo have hosted some of the 00:04:27.620 --> 00:04:29.720 most consequential writers of the last century. 00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:33.259 Yeah. By being invited into these spaces, she 00:04:33.259 --> 00:04:35.639 was thoroughly establishing herself within the 00:04:35.639 --> 00:04:37.819 highest echelons of the literary establishment. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:41.519 Her work was appearing in The New Yorker, The 00:04:41.519 --> 00:04:44.079 Paris Review, The New York Times, Guernica. She 00:04:44.079 --> 00:04:46.240 built this formidable academic and institutional 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:48.410 foundation. But rather than getting comfortable 00:04:48.410 --> 00:04:50.709 inside that very prestigious, very traditional 00:04:50.709 --> 00:04:53.550 literary bubble, she used it as a launch pad 00:04:53.550 --> 00:04:56.470 for something much more expansive. And that actually 00:04:56.470 --> 00:04:58.410 brings us to a core quote from Griffiths from 00:04:58.410 --> 00:05:01.350 an interview back in 2015. This quote really 00:05:01.350 --> 00:05:03.649 serves as the thesis for her entire career. She 00:05:03.649 --> 00:05:06.329 said, I like the fluidity each genre offers me 00:05:06.329 --> 00:05:09.139 spatially, emotionally, and creatively. I can 00:05:09.139 --> 00:05:11.939 take an idea, word fragment, or image and open 00:05:11.939 --> 00:05:14.560 it up across forms. The inclusion of the word 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:16.819 spatially in that quote is so striking to me. 00:05:16.879 --> 00:05:19.360 Yeah, it really is. We usually think of writing 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:22.139 as happening flatly on a page. You read left 00:05:22.139 --> 00:05:24.920 to right, top to bottom. But she sees a piece 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:28.100 of art as a three -dimensional space. She looks 00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:30.540 at a fragment of a thought and asks a structural 00:05:30.540 --> 00:05:33.620 question. Does this belong in the tight, rhythmic 00:05:33.620 --> 00:05:36.970 stanza of a poem? Or does this belong physically 00:05:36.970 --> 00:05:39.970 inside the frame of a camera lens? It almost 00:05:39.970 --> 00:05:42.649 reminds me of someone who speaks multiple languages 00:05:42.649 --> 00:05:45.670 fluently. Like if you only speak English, there 00:05:45.670 --> 00:05:48.569 are certain concepts or jokes or emotions in 00:05:48.569 --> 00:05:50.829 other cultures that simply do not have a direct 00:05:50.829 --> 00:05:53.250 translation. Right. You just can't express them 00:05:53.250 --> 00:05:55.810 fully with the vocabulary you have. Griffiths 00:05:55.810 --> 00:05:57.889 realized early on that the human experience is 00:05:57.889 --> 00:06:01.129 way too complex for just one language. So she 00:06:01.129 --> 00:06:03.110 built a toolkit of different mediums, like a 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:04.730 mechanic. If you only have a wrench, you can 00:06:04.730 --> 00:06:07.209 only fix certain problems. But she learned the 00:06:07.209 --> 00:06:08.870 language of poetry. She learned the language 00:06:08.870 --> 00:06:11.430 of photography. She even created a video interview 00:06:11.430 --> 00:06:15.259 series called Poets on Poetry. By building this 00:06:15.259 --> 00:06:18.399 massive multidisciplinary vocabulary, she ensured 00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:21.040 that she could articulate absolutely any emotional 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:23.240 reality she encountered. It makes you wonder 00:06:23.240 --> 00:06:26.639 how often we get stuck in our own lives, simply 00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:29.879 because we are using the wrong medium to process 00:06:29.879 --> 00:06:33.120 a problem. I want you to think about this. When 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.879 you face a complex problem or emotion at work 00:06:35.879 --> 00:06:39.069 or in life, Do you try to force it into your 00:06:39.069 --> 00:06:41.189 default way of thinking? Yeah, people do that 00:06:41.189 --> 00:06:43.550 all the time. People often try to talk their 00:06:43.550 --> 00:06:45.689 way out of a conflict. Well, maybe they need 00:06:45.689 --> 00:06:48.790 to write it down to see the pattern. Or we stare 00:06:48.790 --> 00:06:50.870 at a spreadsheet trying to find a creative solution 00:06:50.870 --> 00:06:53.069 when we should be drawing a map of the process. 00:06:53.970 --> 00:06:56.329 Griffith's approach shows us that sometimes the 00:06:56.329 --> 00:06:58.689 barrier to understanding isn't the problem itself. 00:06:58.910 --> 00:07:01.689 It is the medium we are defaulting to. Wow. Yeah. 00:07:01.810 --> 00:07:04.050 Her career provides the ultimate proof of why 00:07:04.050 --> 00:07:06.470 having those multiple mediums is so necessary. 00:07:07.089 --> 00:07:09.410 For a long time, she was primarily known for 00:07:09.410 --> 00:07:12.389 her incredible success in poetry. By 2011, she 00:07:12.389 --> 00:07:14.370 was featured in the first poetry issue of Oprah 00:07:14.370 --> 00:07:17.269 Winfrey's O Magazine. Huge deal. Massive. early 00:07:17.269 --> 00:07:19.230 collections like Miracle Arrhythmia and They're 00:07:19.230 --> 00:07:22.170 Quite a Distance were making serious waves. And 00:07:22.170 --> 00:07:25.290 her 2011 collection, Mule and Pear, won the inaugural 00:07:25.290 --> 00:07:27.709 Poetry Award from the Black Caucus of the American 00:07:27.709 --> 00:07:31.350 Library Association in 2012. That is a major 00:07:31.350 --> 00:07:33.350 recognition from a foundational institution. 00:07:33.889 --> 00:07:36.569 By the time her 2015 collection, Lighting the 00:07:36.569 --> 00:07:38.790 Shadow, became a finalist for multiple prizes, 00:07:39.110 --> 00:07:41.350 she had essentially conquered the poetry world. 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:44.459 Here's where it gets really interesting. The 00:07:44.459 --> 00:07:47.500 pivot. Yes, the pivot. In 2020, she published 00:07:47.500 --> 00:07:50.220 a project called Seeing the Body. This was a 00:07:50.220 --> 00:07:52.639 profound departure from her previous work, and 00:07:52.639 --> 00:07:55.480 it emerged from a place of unimaginable, life 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:59.120 -altering grief. In 2014, Griffiths lost her 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:01.379 mother, the community organizer and former police 00:08:01.379 --> 00:08:04.240 officer we discussed earlier. Losing her mother 00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:06.779 fundamentally shifted Griffiths' creative output. 00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:09.300 She didn't just write a book of poems to process 00:08:09.300 --> 00:08:11.740 the loss. She paired her poetry with her own 00:08:11.740 --> 00:08:13.899 original photography. And the choice to bring 00:08:13.899 --> 00:08:16.259 in photography for that specific project carries 00:08:16.259 --> 00:08:18.939 immense thematic weight. The source notes that 00:08:18.939 --> 00:08:21.639 seeing the body explores memory, Black womanhood, 00:08:21.740 --> 00:08:24.519 the American landscape, and rebirth. But the 00:08:24.519 --> 00:08:27.579 deeper question is why blending visual and textual 00:08:27.579 --> 00:08:30.660 art is so uniquely effective for processing grief. 00:08:31.339 --> 00:08:34.159 Grief is an emotion that notoriously defies language. 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:37.379 Words often feel incredibly hollow or insufficient 00:08:37.379 --> 00:08:40.279 when you are facing the absolute finality of 00:08:40.279 --> 00:08:43.620 losing a parent. They really do. By pairing poetry 00:08:43.620 --> 00:08:46.620 with photography, she anchors the abstract floating 00:08:46.620 --> 00:08:50.399 pain of loss into physical reality. A photograph 00:08:50.399 --> 00:08:53.500 captures a frozen moment in time. It is quite 00:08:53.500 --> 00:08:55.980 literally the ghost of a second that has passed. 00:08:56.480 --> 00:08:59.100 That perfectly mirrors what grief feels like. 00:08:59.419 --> 00:09:01.840 You are constantly looking at the ghosts of the 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:04.360 past. A review in Guernica magazine captured 00:09:04.360 --> 00:09:06.919 the effect of that combination perfectly. They 00:09:06.919 --> 00:09:08.779 stated that the collection brings together poetry 00:09:08.779 --> 00:09:11.379 and photography to powerful effect, providing 00:09:11.379 --> 00:09:13.399 the reader with an experience that's both visually 00:09:13.399 --> 00:09:15.740 and emotionally arresting. Visually and emotionally 00:09:15.740 --> 00:09:18.360 arresting. Exactly. When a book arrests you, 00:09:18.419 --> 00:09:20.580 it stops you in your tracks. You turn the page 00:09:20.580 --> 00:09:22.679 and you aren't just reading about her loss, you 00:09:22.679 --> 00:09:25.360 are visually confronting it. The world recognized 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:27.720 the sheer power of that hybrid approach immediately. 00:09:28.409 --> 00:09:30.730 The way she allowed her grief to dictate the 00:09:30.730 --> 00:09:32.889 medium rather than forcing her grief into the 00:09:32.889 --> 00:09:35.929 familiar box of standard poetry resonated on 00:09:35.929 --> 00:09:38.590 a massive scale. The accolades for seeing the 00:09:38.590 --> 00:09:41.210 body were staggering. It was selected as one 00:09:41.210 --> 00:09:44.899 of NPR's best books of 2020. It won the 2021 00:09:44.899 --> 00:09:47.879 Hurston Wright Legacy Award for Poetry and the 00:09:47.879 --> 00:09:50.559 2021 Patterson Poetry Prize. Just incredible. 00:09:50.879 --> 00:09:54.299 It was even nominated for a 2021 NAACP Image 00:09:54.299 --> 00:09:57.080 Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. 00:09:57.419 --> 00:10:00.019 A reviewer for the Los Angeles Review of Books 00:10:00.019 --> 00:10:03.299 called it a radiant and soulful collection. She 00:10:03.299 --> 00:10:05.500 managed to take the most devastating, disorienting 00:10:05.500 --> 00:10:07.960 moment of her life and translate it into a masterpiece 00:10:07.960 --> 00:10:11.220 just by expanding her artistic vocabulary. But 00:10:11.220 --> 00:10:13.500 as we see, where the mind is adaptable, and restless 00:10:13.500 --> 00:10:16.139 as hers. The boundaries of her canvas just keep 00:10:16.139 --> 00:10:18.580 expanding. When she realizes she can move between 00:10:18.580 --> 00:10:21.059 forms, she doesn't stop. No, she takes an entirely 00:10:21.059 --> 00:10:24.259 new leap in 2023. After establishing herself 00:10:24.259 --> 00:10:26.639 as a highly decorated poet, a visual artist, 00:10:26.740 --> 00:10:28.840 and a photographer, she steps into the world 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:31.620 of fiction. A huge jump. She released her debut 00:10:31.620 --> 00:10:33.940 novel, Promise, which was published by Random 00:10:33.940 --> 00:10:36.919 House in the U .S. and John Murray in the U .K. 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:39.799 We are talking about someone who had already 00:10:39.799 --> 00:10:42.120 achieved the highest possible honors in poetry, 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:45.200 deciding to be a debut artist all over again 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:48.519 with global publishing houses behind her. And 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:50.960 the critical reception proved that her mastery 00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:54.220 translated to fiction just as well. Kirkus Reviews 00:10:54.220 --> 00:10:56.620 called it a stunning and evocative portrait of 00:10:56.620 --> 00:10:59.960 love, pride and survival. And the reviewer at 00:10:59.960 --> 00:11:01.960 The Times gave this incredibly visceral assessment, 00:11:02.139 --> 00:11:05.080 saying the novel is by turns enchanting and enraging. 00:11:05.100 --> 00:11:08.720 And it left me emotionally shattered. If we connect 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:10.820 this to the bigger picture, we have to talk about 00:11:10.820 --> 00:11:13.700 the sheer creative stamina required for a shift 00:11:13.700 --> 00:11:16.720 of this magnitude. Moving from poetry to a novel 00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:18.639 isn't just a matter of typing more words on a 00:11:18.639 --> 00:11:21.220 page. It requires entirely different creative 00:11:21.220 --> 00:11:23.299 muscles. Right. It's a completely different discipline. 00:11:23.500 --> 00:11:26.759 Exactly. Poetry is the art of condensation. It 00:11:26.759 --> 00:11:29.500 is about distilling a massive emotion or complex 00:11:29.500 --> 00:11:32.120 image down to its absolute most potent essence. 00:11:32.799 --> 00:11:35.460 A brilliant poem can capture the feeling of a 00:11:35.460 --> 00:11:38.159 single sharp intake of breath. A novel, however, 00:11:38.259 --> 00:11:41.279 is the art of expansion. It requires vast world 00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:44.259 -building, intricate narrative pacing, complex 00:11:44.259 --> 00:11:47.100 character arcs, and an endurance that can sustain 00:11:47.100 --> 00:11:49.200 an emotional throughline over hundreds of pages. 00:11:49.799 --> 00:11:52.539 The fact that she could pivot from the condensed, 00:11:52.679 --> 00:11:56.279 highly visual world of poetry into the sprawling 00:11:56.279 --> 00:11:58.899 narrative endurance test of a novel and still 00:11:58.899 --> 00:12:01.279 leave critics emotionally shattered shows an 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:03.600 unparalleled command of the human emotional engine. 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:06.460 That toolkit just continues to grow. And all 00:12:06.460 --> 00:12:08.580 of those skills, the poetic condensation, the 00:12:08.580 --> 00:12:11.539 visual framing, the narrative expansion set the 00:12:11.539 --> 00:12:13.500 stage for what might be her most significant 00:12:13.500 --> 00:12:16.860 convergence of life, identity and art. We need 00:12:16.860 --> 00:12:18.519 to look at her personal identity and the major 00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:20.440 life changes that directly inform her latest 00:12:20.440 --> 00:12:23.620 work. Griffiths identifies as a queer black woman. 00:12:23.700 --> 00:12:26.480 And in 2021, she married the Indian born British 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:28.840 American novelist Salman Rushdie. Right. They 00:12:28.840 --> 00:12:30.899 reside together in New York City. And in January 00:12:30.899 --> 00:12:33.440 of 2026, she published her memoir titled. the 00:12:33.440 --> 00:12:36.600 flower bearers. The shift to memoir is arguably 00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:38.799 the most vulnerable choice a writer can make. 00:12:38.919 --> 00:12:41.799 In poetry, you can always hide behind the veil 00:12:41.799 --> 00:12:44.860 of a metaphor. In fiction, you can distribute 00:12:44.860 --> 00:12:47.899 your own pain or joy among invented characters. 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:50.360 But a memoir strips all of that protective distance 00:12:50.360 --> 00:12:52.980 away. Exactly. You're presenting your lived reality 00:12:52.980 --> 00:12:55.240 directly to the reader. And the lived reality 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:57.580 explored in this memoir is incredibly heavy. 00:12:58.039 --> 00:13:00.259 The Guardian described the book in a way that 00:13:00.259 --> 00:13:03.460 highlights its vast emotional range. They called 00:13:03.460 --> 00:13:06.519 it simultaneously a love story. a portrait of 00:13:06.519 --> 00:13:09.139 sisterhood, and a visceral depiction of violence, 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:12.379 loss, and emotional devastation. The context 00:13:12.379 --> 00:13:14.559 for that violence and devastation is highly specific 00:13:14.559 --> 00:13:17.980 and globally known. As noted by the iPaper, the 00:13:17.980 --> 00:13:20.620 memoir offers a painful insight into the stabbing 00:13:20.620 --> 00:13:23.120 of her husband, Salman Rushdie, told entirely 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:25.960 from her perspective. We are talking about an 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:28.860 intensely public, shocking, and violent trauma, 00:13:29.100 --> 00:13:31.679 an event that generated endless global headlines, 00:13:31.980 --> 00:13:34.940 think pieces, and political commentary. But for 00:13:34.940 --> 00:13:37.820 Griffiths, this wasn't a news story. She experienced 00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:40.539 it intimately as a wife watching her family endure 00:13:40.539 --> 00:13:43.039 the unthinkable. This raises an important question, 00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:44.500 and we want to look at it strictly through the 00:13:44.500 --> 00:13:47.360 lens of art and emotional processing here. Absolutely. 00:13:47.639 --> 00:13:50.960 How does an artist survive and process an intensely 00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:54.519 public trauma? When the entire world is projecting 00:13:54.519 --> 00:13:57.460 their own social, political, or cultural narratives 00:13:57.460 --> 00:14:00.220 onto a violent event that happened to your own 00:14:00.220 --> 00:14:02.620 family, how do you keep from being swallowed 00:14:02.620 --> 00:14:04.799 by the noise? Yeah, how do you navigate that? 00:14:04.980 --> 00:14:07.179 For Griffiths, the answer is to return to the 00:14:07.179 --> 00:14:11.200 page. By writing a memoir, she actively reclaims 00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:14.179 her own narrative. She refuses to let the public 00:14:14.179 --> 00:14:17.139 or the press or the attacker define her experience 00:14:17.139 --> 00:14:19.860 or her husband's experience. She takes control 00:14:19.860 --> 00:14:22.059 of the story, framing a horrific act of violence 00:14:22.059 --> 00:14:24.759 within the context of her own profound truth. 00:14:24.980 --> 00:14:27.700 And as the reviews point out, her truth is ultimately 00:14:27.700 --> 00:14:30.639 a story of love and sisterhood. It is an act 00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:33.080 of supreme emotional defiance to answer that 00:14:33.080 --> 00:14:35.340 kind of visceral violence with a deliberate, 00:14:35.519 --> 00:14:38.279 slow and vulnerable work of art. So what does 00:14:38.279 --> 00:14:40.799 this all mean? When we zoom out and look at this 00:14:40.799 --> 00:14:43.120 entire projectory, from a young girl in Washington, 00:14:43.299 --> 00:14:45.559 D .C., absorbing the lessons of an environmental 00:14:45.559 --> 00:14:48.860 lawyer and a community organizer, to a celebrated 00:14:48.860 --> 00:14:52.179 poet mastering traditional forms. To a visual 00:14:52.179 --> 00:14:54.940 artist capturing the unspeakable grief of losing 00:14:54.940 --> 00:14:57.789 her mother. Right. to a debut novelist building 00:14:57.789 --> 00:15:01.190 expansive new worlds and finally to a memoirist 00:15:01.190 --> 00:15:04.889 processing unimaginably public trauma it means 00:15:04.889 --> 00:15:07.309 that her career is a living testament to art 00:15:07.309 --> 00:15:10.129 as the ultimate survival mechanism she didn't 00:15:10.129 --> 00:15:11.850 just make art for the sake of winning awards 00:15:11.850 --> 00:15:14.649 she made art to survive the crushing weight of 00:15:14.649 --> 00:15:17.649 being alive when a feeling or a trauma was too 00:15:17.649 --> 00:15:20.669 heavy to carry on her own she built a new creative 00:15:20.669 --> 00:15:23.149 form to hold it for her that is the synthesis 00:15:23.149 --> 00:15:25.970 of her entire journey Rachel Eliza Griffiths 00:15:25.970 --> 00:15:28.549 demonstrates the profound power of never letting 00:15:28.549 --> 00:15:31.149 your tools limit your expression. She never let 00:15:31.149 --> 00:15:32.950 a specific genre dictate what she was allowed 00:15:32.950 --> 00:15:35.529 to feel or how she was allowed to heal. If the 00:15:35.529 --> 00:15:37.669 genre didn't work for the season of life she 00:15:37.669 --> 00:15:40.889 was in, she found a new one. And that is a perspective 00:15:40.889 --> 00:15:43.250 that translates far beyond the literary world. 00:15:43.870 --> 00:15:46.129 Whether you are prepping for a meeting, trying 00:15:46.129 --> 00:15:48.230 to communicate a difficult truth to a partner, 00:15:48.370 --> 00:15:51.629 navigating a complex crisis at work, or just 00:15:51.629 --> 00:15:53.549 trying to make sense of an increasingly chaotic 00:15:53.549 --> 00:15:57.070 world, having multiple genres of thought is invaluable. 00:15:57.789 --> 00:16:01.029 Do not let your default setting trap you into 00:16:01.029 --> 00:16:03.610 thinking there is only one way to look at a problem. 00:16:03.789 --> 00:16:06.570 We want to leave you with a final lingering thought 00:16:06.570 --> 00:16:09.289 today. Something to mull over on your own after 00:16:09.289 --> 00:16:12.409 this deep dive ends. Think about the most defining, 00:16:12.509 --> 00:16:15.009 perhaps the most difficult moment of your life. 00:16:15.529 --> 00:16:17.870 If you had to capture it, what medium would you 00:16:17.870 --> 00:16:20.690 choose right now? If you usually rely on words 00:16:20.690 --> 00:16:22.529 to explain yourself, what would that moment look 00:16:22.529 --> 00:16:24.490 like if you could only express it as a single 00:16:24.490 --> 00:16:27.049 photograph without a caption? Try translating 00:16:27.049 --> 00:16:29.210 your own experience into an entirely new form 00:16:29.210 --> 00:16:31.610 today and see what hidden truths you discover 00:16:31.610 --> 00:16:33.649 about yourself. You might be surprised by the 00:16:33.649 --> 00:16:35.529 clarity you find when you just change the lens. 00:16:36.059 --> 00:16:38.240 Thank you so much for joining us and exploring 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:40.700 this incredible life with us today. It's been 00:16:40.700 --> 00:16:43.299 a privilege to sift through these sources and 00:16:43.299 --> 00:16:45.759 share this journey with you. Take care of yourself, 00:16:45.980 --> 00:16:48.419 try exploring a new medium today, and we'll see 00:16:48.419 --> 00:16:48.960 you next time.