Delving into the flower bed of recovery, finding rose petals to seal our wounds. Whether physical, emotional, sexual or otherwise. Discover the intimate healing process from the eyes of one daughter. My Little Garden tells the story of survival using the language of poetry.
Delving into the flower bed of recovery, finding rose petals to seal our wounds. Whether physical, emotional, sexual or otherwise. Discover the intimate healing process from the eyes of one daughter. My Little Garden tells the story of survival using the language of poetry.
Your words tangle
around my neck
like
vines.
Tighter,
tighter
you wrap
around me.
You’ll
never
let me go,
but
you’ll never
love me.
If your words
were vines,
your hands
would be snakes
Slithering to
hold those in place.
Never to leave,
never to be free.
Expect so much,
but there is
so little
of me.
If your words
were vines,
and your hands
were snakes,
The scowl
on your face
would be a
disastrous hurricane.
Disapproval
deep within
the lines of
your face.
If your words
were vines,
And your hands
were snakes,
And the scowl
upon your face
was a disastrous
hurricane,
Then the
love you give
would be like water
in a drought.
Without
a doubt,
your vines
cut us down
until we are
bleeding out.
Your hands
hold us tight
until we
cannot fight.
Your scowl
cuts us deep.
The water
you feed us
in a little
porcelain spoon
nourishes us,
even if just
for a
moment,
we crave the soft
hug of the vines,
the gentle grasp
of the hands.
We even hope
the rain
of the hurricane
will allow
flowers to bloom
someday.
That little porcelain
spoon is
just enough
water
to keep us
at bay
Before we realize
you are
the one thing
in our way
To
self-actualization,
Self-love,
and self-care.
We realize
your vines are spiked,
And you go
without a care
For the wounds that cut us
and scar us,
and so you
leave us behind.
The moment we
take our scissors
and cut the
umbilical cord
that
is a vine
And realize
we’re just fine.
Trauma survivors will relate to Elle Yoder’s poetry collection as its themes are universal to those who have suffered its pain. The book of 20 poems is divided into two sections, the first, Cocoon, reflecting a life stunted from abuse, the second, Monarch, meant to reflect healing.
Each poem is entitled for blooms, trees and creatures from nature’s abundance. The poetry shows talent, thought and effort. For example, in the poem Vine – about cutting umbilical cord to past pain – the author uses repetition, and repetitive symmetry to show in simple, strong words how trauma weaves through a life.
In Lavender, the poet’s lyricism is highlighted in the lines, “Kaleidoscopic views, Prismatic color hues Shining in as I take it in.” The poem Cotton, with the repeated phrase, “Chupacabra blood-red coming towards me,” displays a unique imagination. Cardinal, mixes fonts to indicate the back and forth in this ambitious, dual-voiced poem.
Unfortunately, the collection overuses blunt, negative imagery and phrases. Daffodil’s words reflect a lyrical longing for innocence – “Daffodil days and wishes well spent the sky and the clouds heaven-sent.” But the poem suffers for the last line, “Now I’ll be waiting here until you croak.”
Even lines in the poem, Garden, the poem that best reflects the book’s theme like, “And every day I feel as if I am the dirt in Eden beneath mortal feet” come across as critical, not redemptive.
The collection’s one- to three- word-per-line format could benefit from more poetic and stylistic devices and the poems could have been tightened to make their message stronger. Still, there is no doubt this book is a sincere attempt to tackle difficult and personal subject matter.
Yoder writes the poems are not autobiographical, however, their epilogue reads at times almost vengeful, being signed, “no love, daughter.” Other poetry books about trauma have used this type of letter, perhaps as catharsis. However, to reflect healing, the book could contain more promise for growth, a promise, despite the author’s worthy effort, that remains unfulfilled.