Chrysalis-Transformative Language Arts Journal

A Brief Review by Tiffany Monique

Chrysalis: The Journal of Transformative Language Arts

Transformative Language Arts is using spoken, written, sung or embodied words art to facilitate social change. And now, after years of bearing fruit with the Goddard TLA Program, there is a new Transformative Language Arts journal online.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg founded TLA after “years of working with people to develop something that encompassed the written and spoken word, social change and personal transformation” (I interviewed her in 2010 when I first began my studies at Goddard College). The first article in Chrysalis is her story of founding, entitled To Make a Prairie.

I'm in there too, having written a review about Dani Shapiro's creative memoir, Still Writing, and I'm still glad to engage my own transformation due to my TLA graduate students in Pme, Qme dual expression and the spectrum of authenticity. I am actively developing my "art, activism, studies, and livelihood.” Studying Transformative Language Arts has encouraged me to begin some of my best creative work. Once I found my way to engage my own story, it became my Transformative Language Arts mission to help others (mainly women) see within themselves their own spark of inspiration.

It's a wonderful rite of passage for TLA, and Editor Amber Ellis is on top of keeping the flowing nature of Chrysalis in top form. This is a maiden voyage, a first run, and according to Ellis, "The articles, essays, poems and reflection pieces collected within the inaugural issue of Chrysalis mirror this period of transition, this struggle, to become something greater, something whole." In addition to my Masters in Transformative Language Arts, I have been accepted into the Transformative Language Arts certificate program. 

"The certification provides participants with a thorough orientation to TLA, some avenues for developing a TLA practice and connecting with others involved in TLA, and encouragement to be part of the TLA community, help grow that community, and further define and develop TLA in the world. The Goddard program is a much more intensive immersion into TLA" 

Work with people. Love what you do. Spread the word. Change the world. “Simply write”. For whatever your artistic talent, this is wonderfully simple advice to hear. Artistically do what is in you to do, “anywhere and anytime”. It will take years. It will take collaboration. It will take education. Now that certification is possible for TLA Practitioners, there is yet more opportunity to engage and share what is transformative within an artist, and have that artist be a more powerful force for change within a local community. And of course, I've signed up. Care to join me?

With words, song and prayer,
TiMo
Here's where you can read me
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com