About

Meet Rachel Bagby, the inventor of this new poetic form

The creator and presenter of The Way of 10, Rachel Bagby, has a rich and varied background, much of it rooted in words—both written and spoken. Her list of activities reveals her far-reaching interests:
• the author of Divine Daughters: Liberating the Power and Passion of Women’s Voices, which is deeply rooted in her life story
• a vocal artist, whose CDs of her own songs include Full and Reach Across the Lines
• a composer/chant leader and founder of ChoralEarth.com
• a lawyer, whose Stanford degree focused on social change
• a public speaker and leadership trainer, who gives workshops all over North America
• a meditation teacher
• a Bioneer and a pioneer in the fields of social and vibralingual healing, collective wisdom, and harnessing the power of vocal community for collaborative leadership and innovation.

With all that complex and varied background, perhaps it’s no surprise that she invented a concise yet elegant and soul-filled new form of poetry.

Rachel was born into the fourth-generation of activists/healers reaching across the lines of race, class, spiritual, rural, urban and artistic traditions. Sometimes painfully silenced as a child, she grew to find a way to claim her voice and amplify it worldwide. Her career has taken her to South Africa, India, Japan, Canada, and throughout the U.S. to work with thousands of women; devoted to bringing their voices to life through her music, writing, multimedia programs, teleseminars and workshops.

Her work as a writer and poet has appeared in many anthologies, periodicals, and literary journals, including: Essence, Ms., The Wall Street Journal and Time. As a vocal artist she performed with Bobby McFerrin’s a cappella group, “Voicestra” for four years and appeared on The Today Show, PBS and VH-1. Her story, voice and music compositions are featured in several documentaries, including the Emmy Award-winning Dialogues with Madwomen and Alice Walker: Visions of the Spirit. Music from her production company, outta the box and music publishing company, Breathing Music is broadcast and performed around the world. She has also co-produced Becoming Consciously Vibralingual for the Collective Wisdom Initiative.

Her accomplishments also include:
• The 2008 AHN Award from the Arts and Healing Network
• Being named a Donella Meadows Leadership Fellow 2009-10 by the Sustainability Institute

The story of how Rachel Bagby first gave birth to 10 poetry is equally fascinating and will be told in her forthcoming book, The Way of 10.