From the Ashes - a new collection (WIP)
My WIP aims to empathise, empower and inspire victim/survivors of domestic abuse
Since the publication on my first poetry collection, Sauce Will Thicken on Standing, with soul-led publishing imprint, The Unbound Press in 2023, I’ve been working on another collection, From the Ashes.
Inspired by my own healing journey, and those of many of the women around me, I have been writing poetry around the theme of domestic abuse in all its forms. My aim for this collection is to serve as as a therapeutic intervention,to empower women who have experienced emotional and/or physical abuse to re-write their stories.
This is a passion project that I’ve been working on for some time on and off, and while I have shared some of the poems on social media, I haven’t really spoken about it for fear of upsetting people - which is part of the cycle of abuse. I’m afraid someone might recognise themselves in poems about domestic abuse? Honestly, if anyone reads or hears any of these poems and identifies that it may be about them - then they are the problem, not me, nor any of the women who have contributed.
You see, this collection started out being just my story. Then in speaking to friends and other women, I saw how many of us had these stories. Some of us were healing, some of us had moved on to amazing new lives and some of us were still talking about ourselves as though we’re just punctuation marks in someone else’s story. We don’t need to limit ourselves in this way. Long term abuse causes our brains to change and it’s hard to re-wire these loops (hello, PTSD), but it is possible. If they were able to change our brain wiring, the reverse must also be true. We can change it back. It takes time, and a lot of hard work, but we get to write our own stories.
Whether you’re in an abusive situation now (and abuse takes many forms, I hope we’re now all well aware it doesn’t need to be physical to count. In fact, the emotional scars often leave deeper wounds), trying to get out, have got out, or have even decided to stay for now, I understand. And I want to help you rewrite your story.
I’ve been co-creating many of the poems in this collection, taking the stories women share with me and creating poetry that empathises and empowers, helping women like you and me to redefine our relationship with ourselves and rediscover our inner strength.
Here’s just one example:
If any of this resonates with you and you’d like to be part of this collection, to share your story and co-create powerful poetry with me that may help other women on their journey, I’d love to hear from you. You can message me directly here,or any of my on social media channels (just comment on a post if you can’t for any reason and I’ll contact you)or even contribute in complete confidence anonymously (or not!) via this form.
Full disclosure - right now I’m not sure how this book will be published. I’ll worry about that later. I know in my heart that I am supposed to write it and get it out there, whatever it takes.
After this post, I intend to start sharing more about some of the stories women share with me, and my progress on the collection, for paid subscribers only - if interested, do subscribe and/or upgrade to paid to see these posts.
Finally, if you’d like to hear one of the poems from this collection, about my journey and how I learned to redefine ‘home’ in the aftermath, then I’ll be sharing my story this weekend at ‘Write Up,’ a brand new, one-off event that is the brainchild of
. A celebratory night of storytelling and music, it's part gig, part spoken word and part community gathering, with readings from a wide range of writers at different stages of their journeys. Tickets still available!Thanks for reading Rachael B. Writes. ✍🏽 If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more! 😊