About Jennie Chapman Linthorst
Jennie Chapman Linthorst is a poet, expressive writing teacher, and founder of LifeSPEAKS Expressive Writing & Poetry Therapy. Since 2001, Jennie has facilitated ongoing adult and kids writing groups and inspired private clients to explore their life story through reading and writing poetry. Jennie is on the faculty of the Arts and Healing Initiative (formerly UCLArts & Healing) offering writing groups and trainings to the expressive arts community. She spent six years teaching in the 3rd-grade classrooms of the Manhattan Beach Unified School District and has taught workshops at the Los Angeles Expressive Arts Summit, The California Center for Creative Renewal, UC Irvine Extension, the University of Santa Monica, the National Association for Poetry Therapy, and other organizations.
After graduating cum laude from Skidmore College with a BA in Psychology, and a concentration in dance, Jennie began her career in arts education coordinating artist-in-residency programs for Leap...imagination in learning in San Francisco, and the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Manhattan Beach. She has certification as an Applied Poetry Facilitator from the National Federation of Biblio/ Poetry Therapy. In 2011, she received her Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica.
Jennie is the author of two books of poetry published by Cardinal House: Silver Girl and Autism Disrupted: A Mother’s Journey of Hope. Her poetry has appeared in Bluestem, Edison Literary Review, Feelszine, Foliate Oak, Forge, Kaleidoscope, Literary Mama, Mothers Always Write, Poetic Diversity, Sanskrit, The Art of Autism, The Writer’s Café, Hopeful Parents, and more.
Jennie coaches clients across the country and around the world in-person and via Zoom. Jennie lives in Manhattan Beach, California with her husband Erik, and their son Graham. She is a native of Knoxville, TN.
Poetry from Jennie
Catching Time
by Jennie Linthorst
published in Mothers Always Write, 2020
July is coming to an end.
I want to hold onto it like a hook
on a line, keep reeling it in
with no sense of time.
I give it slack–
let my son venture into deeper water
while the tide of puberty washes over him.
Curves of muscle peek through
his tan chest, a new swagger
as he shuffles by me in flip-flops.
My feet stand sturdy on shore.
Past years come to meet me here
like old friends of kindness.
We gaze at the long horizon,
count buoys in the sea, markers
of where we crossed those dangerous days.
This is the beginning of a different sadness.
I know the line is thin.
It breaks in front of me where years grow old
and the leaving begins.
A Tangled Panic That Lives Underneath
by Jennie Linthorst
published in The Writer’s Café, 2020
I carry Magnolia loneliness,
my bare feet on black Marley floors,
the solos, the steps that play in my dreams.
I carry flashes of fireflies at dusk,
rows of black-eyed Susan’s along a gravel path,
dotted pink streets marking the Dogwood trail.
I carry summer thunderstorms on the side porch
lightning streaks in the sky,
the rhythm of the cicadas, deep in Tennessee woods.
I carry two-lane country roads that kiss the river,
the green algae pond in the backyard on Shawnee Lane,
a tangled panic that lived underneath.
I carry a wall of windows next to my mother’s bed,
her eyes sinking into illness,
my steps down her hallway, unsure of what I would find.