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You are here: Home / Women / Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken

Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken

July 26th, 2015 by Sallie Bingham in Women 1 Comment

wild_hearts_cant_be_broken_bRecently on an impulse I bought a black t-shirt with this slogan printed boldly on it in white, the letters large enough to be read at some distance, although so far no one has commented on them.

Since I never wear t-shirts with slogans, I’ve been wondering why I chose this one and to what degree it expresses, simply, a vain boast, or wishful thinking. Because wild hearts—if there are such thing—would seem to be somewhat fragile, since the world is not particularly kind to wild creatures of any species, or protective of their vulnerability.

And, anyway, do I claim to have a wild heart?

Well, not really. I see my heart as like a wild bunny closed up in a wire cage, perhaps capable of some leaps and hops out in the woods, but necessarily confined. And, if my cage was opened, would I dare to leap out? Caged animals usually cling to the safety of their confinement.

I think my wild bunny wildness—which clearly is not very wild at all, and is vulnerable to all sorts of harm, outside her cage—does represent something so important for women: the attempt, at least, to imagine freedom.

And if this wild bunny heart of mine, which I picture as being particolored with very long ears, did make her escape, the wolf would soon be after her, the hungry wolf of expectations and obligations, to my work, to my dear ones, to my large family—and bunny might end up torn into small pieces.

Yet the slogan for all its boastfulness brings to mind Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese,” with its inspiring and terrifying first line: “You do not have to be good…”

David Whyte, the poet, on one of his CD’s, recalls reading that poem in Boston and being mobbed afterwards by people with a trace of the Puritan still in them who wanted to know where they could get the poem, at once…

I think my wild bunny wildness—which clearly is not very wild at all, and is vulnerable to all sorts of harm, outside her cage—does represent something so important for women: the attempt, at least, to imagine freedom. If we believe the contemporary teaching that we create our own reality (and I only believe it from time to time), then if we can imagine freedom, it may begin to exist.

Our cages, after all, are almost entirely self-constructed. Each wire represents a restriction we feel is necessary if we are going to be loved…

Maybe someone, reading this, will feel called to buy and wear this t-shirt with perhaps more assurance than, at the moment, I possess. I can tell you where to get it…

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In Women

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. Phyllis Free on Facebook says

    July 26th, 2015 at 7:15 am

    The refrain of a country song I’ve yet to finish writing:

    The rain’s comin’ down & my car won’t start,
    And you broke another piece of my heart
    How many times can you break it in two
    Before there’s no heart left to love you”

    Reply

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Taken By The Shawnee

Taken By The Shawnee

July 6th, 2025
Sallie Bingham introduces and reads from her latest work, Taken by the Shawnee.
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Visiting Linda Stein

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Back on October 28th, 2008, I visited artist Linda Stein's studio in New York City and tried on a few of her handmade suits of armor.

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This event was recorded November 1, 2024 in Taos, NM at SOMOS Salon & Bookshop by KCEI Radio, Red River/Taos and broadcast on November 8, 2024.
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This reading took place at The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of 2024.

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Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican

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