Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Judy Collins joins Zibby to discuss SOMETIMES IT’S HEAVEN: Poems of Love, Loss, and Redemption, a timeless, bold, and vulnerable collection of poetry that captures the ethereal and inspiring nature of her artistry in an all-new way. Judy reveals how the death of her son and recent loss of her husband inspired her writing—and how she channeled grief, memory, and music into 365 poems written over the course of a year. She also discusses her lifelong relationship with sobriety, spirituality, and creativity, as well as her reflections on fame, friendship, and art.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Judy. Thank you so much for coming on. Totally booked with Zibby to talk about sometimes it's heaven, poems of love, loss, and redemption. Congratulations. 

Judy: Thank you. 

Zibby: You touched on the most sort of emotional themes in this book. Um, I feel like I really got to know you.

They were beautiful. You go from social activism to your own loss to love and lust. I mean, you really run gamut here of, of, of a human life. Span and emotions. Why don't you tell listeners what inspired this latest collection and how you said about writing it? 

Judy: Well, it was interesting. My husband who unfortunately died in late December last year in 2017.

So this book is really devoted, dedicated to him. In 2017, he, I was starting my year of writing, which I always do. I always get a new notebook out and, and I start, uh, trying to turn. Poems or writing into songs. That's really the, the object. And so he said, so I said to him one day, I said, well, you know, I'll start doing my 90 and 90 days.

And he said, well, why don't you do three hundred and sixty five one a day? And I, I said, well. Why not? That's quite a challenge. And, uh, I, so I started and I actually did 365 poems in 365 days. So when I was finished, I, they sat around for a while. I made some, I turned a few of them into songs, which came out on Spellbound, which was a cup.

Well, a couple of years ago, uh, the first album of all my own songs, and then my agent said, well, you have all these poems sitting around. Why don't we publish them? And uh, I took the name of the book. Sometimes it's heaven from one of the poems. Exactly, which is sort of what you do. You kind of. Cruise over what you've written and figure out how you can use some of it to express what the book is about.

And so we found a publish. I had another book due. I had finished cravings for. One of the other publishers, and they didn't wanna do a book of poetry. So we found, uh, MCIL Andrews, Andrews McNeil wonderful group of, uh, publishers, and they decided, they usually don't put. A picture on the cover. They usually put birds or colors or something, you know, they're all very beautiful.

But towards the end of the, um, editing situation, I found this, my, my team and I found this picture of me at 13. I should show it to you. It's, I was 13. Oh, you've got it too. I was 13 in my, dress in which I was playing Mozart with the Symphony Orchestra for my teachers, Antonio Bri Rico's orchestra in Denver.

And so they thought, well, that looks great. I think we'll use it, which was a surprise. And, uh. I thought, I love it. I think it's a great, for me, it's a great, uh, 

cover picture. 

Zibby: It is. I love it. I absolutely love it. And can't believe you were only 13 in that picture. 

Oh my gosh. 

Judy: I was always way grow up, grown up for my age, I'm sure.

Zibby: Do you mind if I maybe read a couple of the poems and you can talk about them? Is that okay? 

Judy: Of course. Absolutely. 

Zibby: This is at the end of the poem called Clark, about your late son, and I'm so sorry for your loss and love the way you wrote about him and honored his memory and all of that. 

Judy: Thank you. Thank you.

Zibby: You wrote some of the bottles always blew up in the closet. What a mess. I picked Clark up and swept the glass off the floor and went to work. We had a husky named Smokey, and by the time I left for my big career. I was divorced from my starter husband and fighting to have custody of my beautiful boy, which eventually I won.

We lived happily ever after until his death by his own hand. In 1992, he died as had his paternal grandfather, Gary Taylor, sometime in 1948 in a car, in a garage with the motor running. Rest in peace. My beautiful boy, ugh. 

Judy: Well, you know, it's always a surprise. I, I don't, although I think he was seven years sober when, when he decided to take his life when he decided to drink.

And, um, I was. Shocked and devastated, but it's not, you know, if somebody is an addict and they're, they're not working out sobriety with the kind of help, and he had great help. He was at Hazelden in Minnesota and he was in, he was in the. Aftercare program. Really. But he'd been sober for a long time. Seven years is a good start.

He wasn't done apparently. And so when he took his life, it was interesting. I, I was here, it was the day that my husband Lewis, who was a brilliant designer, industrial designer, was, uh, given the, the. The work of designing the Korean memorial in Washington DC on the mall, and he was in Washington and my, one of my brothers called me and called him, and we met in Minnesota for the funeral and, it was, it was a strange kind of synchronicity, I suppose, but it was the hardest thing I ever did. And one of my friends, uh, Joan Rivers was, was a friend of ours and she called me. I remember standing in this hallway outside my studio a few days after the funeral and I got a call from Joan and she was.

She was in the place where she worked so much, I forget what it's called. And she was get getting ready to go on stage and she called me and she said, you cannot cancel your shows. She, her husband had just killed himself. And she was in the middle, and a lot of women in New York gathered around me and helped me to get through this.

It's a, it is not the same, but it's a similar thing to what's happened to me with Louis's death in December of last year, and he was, he was discovered to have an undiagnosed cancer. 

Zibby: Hmm. 

Judy: And it had been going on for a long time. And, um, anyway, Joan said You can't. Cancel your shows. And I had started to do this in 1992, but I called my team and I said, okay, I have to listen to Joan River.

She knows what she's talking about, and. I went out, I continued, I put everything back on the boards and, and my mother came out with me. My sister came out with me, was one of her kids, little tiny one. And Louis came out with me and, uh. I managed to do it, and I do think I learned a lot from it. I learned, well, I learned that first of all, you have to be with people you love doing something you love.

So that combination was enormously helpful for me and it, it. It fed that poem. So, you know, I'm glad I had him. I mean, I feel the same way about Lewis. I had 46 years with him and um, and I had 33 years with my son. And sometimes, I mean, I've heard a lot of people talk who didn't have the kind of time that I had with either my son or my husband.

So, you know, it's sort of the luck of the draw. And, uh, you know, those years that we have with people who go by whatever mo mode they. They have to leave on. I mean, we're not, none of us are gonna stay here. We're all supposed to leave. That's what the way that it's set up. How and when and where. Well, that's up to higher power and forces that 

we don't know anything about.

Zibby: So does it make you afraid of your own death or do you feel like at peace about it? 

Judy: Um, no. First of all, I'm 86 and I'm actually. 27. I mean, I have a very Buddhist attitude about all of this, and one of my friends and I, where are these books? I wonder what happened to them. She sent me two wonderful books about the deaths of the deaths of many, many, many great Buddhist teachers and how they leave the planet.

And how they do it in such a kind and loving way. And they tell their followers not to his be hysterical and not to weep and cry and you know, pull their hair out and nash their teeth and they just say, go about your business and do what you have to do because this is a normal. Process. This is not something that was suddenly made up just for you, the, the matter of law.

So I've, I fortunately, have been a devotee of, of, uh, yoga Nanda for decades, and that came from my teacher, Antonio Brico. I'm not sure I wrote a poem about her in this book. I'm not sure, but anyway, eventually I will, of course. But I was a student of hers for decades and played with her orchestra and which shows on the cover of this book, but also that, I suppose that's a poem to her in a way, the picture.

But she was a, a, i, I studied with her for years and then when, uh, she and I. Realized that, uh, I was gonna make a movie out of her, of her life, which I did, which was nominated for an Academy Award, by the way, in 1975. I. And, um, while we were making the film, I was in her studio in which I'd spent many years, and I saw this little portrait of Yogananda, you know, a bearded master, some kind of zen person.

And I said, how did that get there? Who, who? And then I heard this incredible story about her life and how after she had been told by every big conductor in the. United States that she could never, and other places that she could never become a conductor because she was a woman. And, uh, she found Yogananda in New York in probably 90, uh, um, well, let's see.

She conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in 19. 29, and she was 27. So she had already met Yogananda in New York and he had said to her, why do you don't let people tell you what you can do? I mean, of course you can be a conductor. And he helped to send her to Berlin, and as I said, her first gig. Was the Berlin Philharmonic when she was 27, and she became, you know, the toast of the town.

She was, she conducted everything, include the, including the New York Philharmonic. So she was way ahead of her time. 

Zibby: Wow. 

Can I read another, another poem? 

Judy: Of course. I'm interested in your choices. 

Zibby: Oh, okay. I have a bunch. So how can I even pick? Well, I, I keep going to the ones about loss, so I'll just read this one, but then I, I promise I'll, I'll skip to something else.

Oh, actually this was also so interesting. 

Judy: What? What do you want? Whatever I want.

Zibby: I know I'm drawn to, to loss as well. Well, this is called in the present. In the present, all is well. Your death did not occur today. The flowers and the wishing well are lovely in the light of May tomorrow, has no power, no sway.

What happens then is not today. The winter day you took your life does not confront this sunny. Now, when all is well, makes one more bow and lifts a glass to this is how to get through mourning your last breath and stay in time. That is not death that somewhere in the past resides I know not where and take no sides.

I'll stay here where they know my name. Where shadows have no one to blame or memories slick with residue. Do not take on a darker hue. The sun shines on in spite of death, in spite of time, in spite of you. I'll stay in now where no one knows how desolate the present grows. 

Judy: Oh boy.

Zibby: That is so good.

Judy: Who wrote that?

Who wrote that?

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Judy: Yeah. You don't know what you're writing. I mean, I, I find that this, you know, there used to be this idea of freehand writing and whatever happens, but it is part of your. Your creative process, whatever's coming out that day is what's going to go on the page. And, uh, laws 

Hmm. Yeah, it's terrible.

And of course, I was surrounded by these wonderful women including, uh, Anderson, Carter's Mother Anderson's, uh, mother 

Zibby: Anderson Cooper, Gloria, Vanderbilt, 

Judy: Gloria, 

Gloria had lost a son. And, uh. I met a woman who wrote a book called My Son. My son, Iris Bolton, wrote a great book. There were only two books that I found about suicide in 1992.

There really was nothing. There were, there were, there was a co, a poetry collection called The Winter of. Silence, I think. And there was, uh, Alvarez's book, book about Sylvia Pap Plath death, which is a very depressing book. Mostly because he doesn't say anything about positive thoughts of this, you know, and, but I re, I found Iris Bolton's book.

She has had and is the president emeritus of a mental health, uh, organization called the Link in, in, uh. Atlanta, and she's now retired, but her son who was 19, took his life and she wrote this book called My Son, my Son. And of course, I mean, it's a hard thing to be a person who teaches mental health. And whose son dies of suicide.

So first of all, it was a wonderful book full of positive ideas and positive thoughts, and it just took me by surprise. It was so wonderful. It was so, she's still a friend of mine and, uh, an amazing person and I think her book probably opened. Up this territory, and now, I don't know, you go to a library, you go to a bookstore, you say you see a whole wall of books about, about death, about suicide, about loss, about people talking about all kinds of sorrows that they've had that people didn't normally talk about except perhaps elusively in poetry.

And a lot of these books are not elusive. To beat the band. They're much more direct and, uh, open and understanding. Also, there is no, what is it called? There is no closure. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Judy: Forget it. It is in part of your life. It's going to hurt. It's gonna be there. It's gonna come up. When things are happy, when things are sad, when you go to a funeral, when you go to a wedding, I mean, it all becomes a part of the fabric of your life.

And this is human. It's not just me, it's, it's from the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden, I. It was going on. You know, the two brothers, one of them killed the other, I think. So throughout the Bible you find these stories and they all involve death. Mm-hmm. Because that's part of the cycle of life.

Zibby: Well, in the book, in addition to loss, which I. I focused on a lot here because it just moved me so much and oh my gosh. Your work. You write about the many other notables that you've gotten to know over the years, and I found myself growing really interested in your perceptions on fame itself and how you've watched it sort of hit yourself.

Yes. But also all these other people in your orbit come and go. Come and go. What? What do you think about that? 

Judy: Well, it's interesting. To have friends of all kinds. You know, I live in New York and I have friends who do every sort of job you could think of. Some are famous, some are not, and and having working on friendships.

When I came to New York, it was 1963 and I had made a suicide attempt when I was 14. Thank God I didn't succeed. I think it would've destroyed my parents. I know it would, and I. I did it in a kind of moment of, of anger at my father because he wanted me to play a very difficult piece of music. La Campanella by list?

No. Was it list? Yeah, it had to be list. He's the difficult one. The most difficult one or one of the most difficult. And it was a very hard piece. I still think it's a train wreck. This piece of music. And, uh, Brico had given it to me to work on and I was working on it and he wanted me to play it at a public event, a big public event.

He was a musician. He was a star in Denver. He was on the radio every day. He was a big performer in various settings in, in Denver. And so he wanted to show me off really. I wasn't having any of it, and so I took a hundred pills and, and I, then I didn't die because that's the way life is. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.

And um, I quickly, my father wrote me a very beautiful letter. He said, you can't do that. That's what parents do. You know, there's no way you can do this. You mustn't do this. You have a very impressive background already at 14, and you better get used to the fact that you're gonna have to work like a maniac the rest of your life, which I have at what you do because you have some kind of.

Thing going on here, which people like and which you'll have to work on because that's the only way you can make it mature. And so the life of an artist is what I've been given, and that means lots of work and lots of travel. You know, it's an illusion that people have about creativity. They think that they can just be creative and go out and start to make a living, and they forget that they have to market themselves.

Zibby: Hmm. 

Judy: The illusion that you become an artist and then it just full no way. You work, you produce, you promote. You go out here, you go out there, you have to deal with dealers. If you're a painter, you have to deal with publishers. If you're a. Writer, you have to deal with the music business if you're a musician.

So it's interesting because, uh, people think this comes outta the air and it just takes care of itself and you don't have to promote it and so on. So. I ran into the suicide idea full force, and then when I got to New York, I founded I, well, I was the drinking, I am, I am a recovering alcoholic for, I've been sober for, for, uh, 47 years.

Exactly the time I've been married. I've been with Louis. I was, we lived in SIN for 18 years and then we got married 27. So. 

Zibby: I, I forgive you. 

Judy: Thank 

you. Thank you. You can be my personal guru. 

Zibby: Yes, of course. Uh, happy to take that role. 

Judy: The gurus, gurus don't make you regret anything or, or. You know, renew your vows or anything like that.

Zibby: My goodness. You also had one moment in the book where you were standing on a back porch in a, in a, with a gentleman and you hear this loud scream and you don't know what it is. And here, wait. I, here it's in, it's Hockney in the mountains. Oh, David Hockney. Not just a gentleman. Okay. Well, can I read this last one?

Do you mind? 

Judy: Yes. 

Zibby: Okay, last one. Hockney in the mountains. It was midnight and the party was over. Our host was tall and rugged. A Colorado man, senior president of the foundation. David Hockney and I were honorary guests at the party, brought in to talk and raise money for someone or something we both believed in.

We were staying at a fancy upscale condo and near the Aspen Alps. I was pretty drunk and David and I went out on the pine balcony to smell the wood smoke and take in the sharp, crisp mountain air. The summer night was cold and we were giddy standing there looking out at Ajax when a heart stopping blood curdling scream, split the air and struck us like knives to the heart.

I said, someone is having glorious sex. David said, someone is being murdered. We debated for a while and then had another drink in the resuming quiet of the mountain air. I stumbled back into the room. Our host called the man at the front desk who said there was nothing they could do about noise in the mountains.

Everybody screams sometimes. The air was still again, as though blood had poured out of a wound and cauterized in the freezing air. David went back to his room. I passed out and woke to the morning paper. The scream we had heard was that of a famous skier who had been stabbed to death by his jealous lover in their little cabin on the next mountain side.

So hard to separate the screams of pleasure from the screams of death. 

Judy: Yeah. What a, what a moment. That was, it was Spider, very famous skier, and the woman who killed him, she never went to jail for the, this, she was married to, uh, a big famous singer, Claudette. Her name was Claudette. Something or other. And she had a long series of trials or issues where, but she never went to jail for it.

It's interesting, it was probably, uh, manslaughter because probably she was out of her mind. She was probably drinking. She was probably both. They were probably stoned, which it, it is no excuse by the way. I think many of these things happened under the reign of, of alcohol and drugs, but it was. Boy, the whole experience got me.

I, I don't know, somebody know, some friend of mine knows David Hockney. I, I knew him then, but I have not been. I, I haven't spent time with him since then. It was an unusual, remarkable event. But when something like this happens and you're a writer of any kind, you're bound to write on it. My manager says I should turn it into a movie.

Well, maybe I will. I have a lot of time. 

Zibby: Uh, what, what do you wanna do next? Like, how do you feel and how do you feel embarking on new projects without your husband to bounce ideas off of? Does it make it harder? 

Judy: Well, he's definitely with me. I am, uh, I was practicing last night and I had put one of our wonderful photographs together.

I don't remember who the photographer is, but it's so wonderful and I just kept staring at him thinking I've been. So fortunate and he's around, he's here. Well, I have to say I'm a little upset that I haven't had as many dreams as I would like, but I have a lot of presence of him it with among my friends because we had a very large coterie of friends and we, and I.

I have always worked hard on friendships. I was going to connect the dots from my therapist, who I started seeing in 63 when I got to New York because I needed to stop. I needed to address my drinking, which I, I didn't with him, but I did talk a lot about the suicide attempt, and I talked a, and then I started the process that has led me to I to where I am today, which is that I started writing, I was in.

I, it was insisted that I write my dreams down and I'm a, I always had been a very, a large dreamer I dreamt every single night of my life when I was a child. I was growing up with, of course my father was blind, incredibly successful, wonderfully bright. Um, I was, I did a show the other night at the Library of Congress where my, where my archives are, but my father got everything he needed from the Library of Congress, they had a whole section always. They have, uh, of braille books, you know, copies of everything from Dickens right down to, uh, the latest, uh, thriller. And so he always had his braille books and he had the recordings of all the shows that came to him from the Library of Congress and talking books so that we would hear Shakespeare read by all the great English speaking actors.

So. What am I telling? Oh, yes. Well, so 

Zibby: I was just 

saying any pro, any projects you're excited to work on coming up? 

Judy: My, my dreams when I was growing up until I was 2022, were in black and white. 

Zibby: Hmm. 

Judy: And I'm sure it was because my father was blind. I had a big accident, ski accident in 1961, and, uh, they had me in the hospital.

I was on Demerol every four hours the way they used to do it. And I was there for a couple of weeks, and when they switched off the Demerol and put me on another painkiller that night, my dreams burst into color. It was very exciting. It was like, you know, it was like the Tony's, it was really exciting.

And, and after that I've always dreamed in color, but, but the dreams have slowed down and I'm not sure why. Uh, because I felt always that that was gonna be a lifetime thing, that I was always gonna dream anyway. I sort of feel left in the dark a little bit because I'm not having as many dreams as, but on the other hand, I have a whole life full of pictures and, and experiences and years and years of doing wonderful things with him.

And he was very much a part of my work because he had always was. Suggesting things, working on things, observing things, being at the shows, making sure that I remembered everything that my singing teacher told me to do, and he studied with my singing teacher with Max. Now, I also am faced with not only another bundle of my own archives after 20 years, but I'm having to think about, and I, I have people who can help me with this that we need to do to get his archives.

Sold somewhere because he's a big deal. You know, he designed the, uh, Korean memorial on the mall in Washington, which is a big yes. You know, belongs to the country, belongs to the world. It belongs to the, to the Koreans. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Judy: And to the world. And so his archives have to be placed somewhere where somebody, people will wanna come and know about Louis Nelson, what he did.

Zibby: Amazing. Judy, thank you so much. I loved your collection. I loved our conversation and I really am wishing you all the best. So thank you so much. 

Judy: Thank 

you. God bless you and thanks for reading those. That was, I haven't heard that before, so I was very touched. 

Zibby: Aw, thank you. 

Judy: Alright, my dear. 

Zibby: All right, 

Judy: Thank you.

Zibby: You're welcome. Thank you. 

Judy: God bless. Have a beautiful day. 

Zibby: You too. Bye-bye.