Memoir Poetry

"Ashes in the Milk" will remind listeners that their greatest path to healing lies within—all they must do is walk down the path. Valerie Johns, MA, MFT, is a prolific poet, author, and therapist who is passionate about helping others heal from their deepest wounds.

Gay icon, great poet, leather daddy, eccentric professor, English, American, biker, non-driver, drug addict, hedonist, intellectual, enigmatic, friendly, Everyman, one-of-a-kind, brother, roommate, HIV-negative, paradigmatic AIDS writer, Nazi belt wearer, Jeff Dahmer scholar, Guggenheim Genius, secret philanthropist, Formalist, Existentialist, prolific letter writer, some-sort-of-an-angel...Thom Gunn was all of these and more... But hovering above these figures lay the memory of his mother.

Through emotional snapshots that span from her adolescence through her early 20s, each brought to life in Yrsa's gorgeous signature style of open white spaces and stirring, singular lines, The Terrible evokes the pain and thrill of girlhood, as well as what it means to discover the fear and power that come with being a woman. With a sharp eye and a rare talent for mining the beauty and the sorrow in the everyday, Yrsa recounts her remarkable life.

Her great-great-grandma came to California in a covered wagon more than a hundred years ago, and her family has farmed in the Sacramento Valley ever since, but a life of farming was the last thing she wanted...until the day fate brings her back to the farm.

Sometimes the best way to understand what’s deep inside requires looking outward. Sometimes the best way to understand the world outside requires a deep dive within. And sometimes, those two things are so intertwined it’s difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends. The Forest of My Youth is a collection of poems and perspectives that probe some of the deepest, most profound and sometimes achingly painful thoughts and questions I’ve had since my spinal cord injury in 1993.

Jonathan Cruz invites you into the raw, unflinching paradoxes of his own life in 36 Chambers of My Mentality. Marked by a past including gang banging and the path to prison, this visceral collection of poetry and prose transcends mere memoir to become a profound exploration of the human spirit tested by extreme circumstances.

Adults often find it difficult to communicate with autistic students and try to “fix” them. But what if we found a way to help these kids use their natural gifts to convey their thoughts and feelings? What if the traditional structure of language prevents them from communicating the full depth of their experiences? What if the most effective and most immediate way for people on the spectrum to express themselves is through verse, which mirrors their sensory-rich experiences and patterned thoughts?

Our homes are a reflection of us. They say something about ourselves, our families and who we are. This book is about growing up in my mother's house from the 1970s in the inner city of Nottingham, England. Each room in our house had a purpose, playing a part in our family life. Through the stories and poems in each chapter of the book, you can take a glimpse into each room of the house and my experiences in a large Caribbean family, from child to adult. The rooms of my mother's house may be different to yours, but they tell of belonging and becoming.

I Wonder When You Knew is a collection of poems, prose, song lyrics, and other writings collected from my high school days through the present time. They describe my experiences, perceptions, and philosophy of love and life. Half of the entries are autobiographical, the others fictional. These writings reflect my own adventures interacting with those people, places, and things that I have loved in my life. I hope that those who listen to these words share some of the same feelings that I have had.

A collection of short stories and poems, Such Pretty Pain is a beautiful invitation into the depths of our shared human experience. Drawing from real life moments that have caused the author much grief, the listener is asked to consider how they may carry their own invisible burdens and regrets. Reflections on violence, racism, trauma, and passed down pain are explored in a unique way. The transformation of harmful stigmas to liberating self expression is possible, and shared in this memoir.

Born in 1875, the great German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898, and went on to become renowned for his delicate depiction of the workings of the human heart. Drawn by some sympathetic note in his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908, Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young, would-be poet on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. Those letters, still a fresh source of inspiration and insight, are accompanied here by a chronicle of Rilke's life.

In a New York Times review of Alice Notley’s 2007 collection In the Pines, Joel Brouwer wrote that “the radical freshness of Notley’s poems stems not from what they talk about, but how they talk, in a stream-of-consciousness style that both describes and dramatizes the movement of the poet’s restless mind, leaping associatively from one idea or sound to the next.” Notley’s new collection is at once a window into the sources of her telepathic and visionary poetics, and a memoir through poems of her Paris-based life between 2000 and 2017, when she finished treatment for her first breast cancer.

Esse livro é uma homenagem à poesia e a tudo o que ela é capaz de proporcionar. Com mais de 30 de seus emocionantes poemas, alguns deles inéditos, Bráulio Bessa nos conta um pouco das histórias do menino de Alto Santo, no interior do Ceará, que se tornou poeta e ativista cultural. Desde o primeiro encontro com a obra de Patativa do Assaré, aos 14 anos, até a fama na televisão, ele mostra como a poesia transformou sua vida. O livro traz ainda depoimentos de fãs de todos os cantos do Brasil.

Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman: The Lives and Careers of 19th Century America’s Most Famous Poets looks at the remarkable lives of the two, and the impact their famous works have had.

Why I Was Late fuses text with performance, bringing a transmasculine wisdom, humor, and experience to bear upon tailgates, spaceships, and wrestling rings. Fierce, tender, convention re-inventing—Petch works hard. And whether it’s as a film union lighting technician, a hospital bed allocator, a Toronto hot dog vendor, or a performer/player of the musical saw, the work is survival. Heroes are found in unexpected places, elevated by both large and small gestures of kindness, accountability and acceptance.

Sit back and enjoy this collection of thought provoking words. As we walk together through these words let us remember or consider those who are or have gone through something similar. We all could learn from taking a single step in someone else’s shoes.

Following in the footsteps of such category killers as Milk and Honey and Whiskey Words & a Shovel I, Fariha Róisín's poetry book is a collection of her thoughts as a young, queer, Muslim femme navigating the difficulties of her intersectionality. Simultaneously, this compilation unpacks the contentious relationship that exists between Róisín and her mother, her platonic and romantic heartbreaks, and the cognitive dissonance felt as a result of being so divided among her broad spectrum of identities.

Psychological injuries and trauma suffered during childhood are extremely common. They lead to all sorts of addictive behaviors as well as anxiety, depression, and debilitating and life-threatening physical maladies. In Healing with Psychedelics, Chris writes about how to recognize the often-hidden histories that caused us as children to create a false self and changed how we operate in this world. He then takes us on his personal healing journey, revealing the details of his own experience and describing the process of psychedelic-assisted sacred-medicine therapy.

Short stories about life’s humorous, happy, and dark moments. Some of the stories from my years in nursing, Steve's clumsiness, and my cooking disasters might make you spit out your coffee laughing. The stories of my pets will put a warm smile on your face, and the stories about life's darker moments might make you wipe a tear or two.

Written words are vibrating your brain waves, unlocking the crave to follow a program of life. Rays are put in front of us everyday. Reality is presented in a new way.

Mental audio that you can see before you hear. It's in your brain before it's in your ear. If you miss a point, do not fear, just listen to it again. Your mind will make it clear. The vibration of these words make a meaning of this sound.