I’m excited to announce a new arrival.
A Poet’s Curse came to be on the morning of the blood moon, a total eclipse with six planets in retrograde. It seemed to me the perfect opportunity to “take out some trash” and it did, in fact, prove to be quite the cleansing detox I had hoped for.
I had, over recent months, written some very dark and angry poetry in response to awful people doing reprehensible things. Some of their actions were directed at me, others were things that caused significant damage to people I care about.
I had stowed these poems in a file with others I had written for my next poetry collection. However, I didn’t feel easy about that. I felt they were too angry, too dark, too vindictive for a general literary collection, and the last thing I wanted was for the light and shadow of those other poems to be overwhelmed by the darkness of a few.
Then an idea came to me: a separate, smaller collection of dark poetry that explored my observations of horrible people and my responses to their actions. I had written a few of those in the past, and they can be found here and there in my other poetry collections. Combining those with the new, darker poems would create a very powerful collection that would appeal to both my poetry readers and those who enjoy my horror stories.
So, on July 28, A Poet’s Curse was released.
I’m proud of this collection, and in a somewhat nerdy way, I’m super excited to have a book of my own that fully deserves the raven on the cover. I feel as though I have unlocked an author achievement that is wonderful and macabre at the same time.
I know some will judge me as unforgiving or lacking in grace. To be honest, that doesn’t bother me at all for one simple reason: because the people who inspired these poems are, to this day, completely unrepentant and defiant about the unconscionable things they have done. For far too long have people turned a blind eye to such behaviour, talking instead about grace and forgiveness.
As is clearly evident when reading these poems, I’m not someone who can do that.
People often say, “Never annoy a writer. She will put you in a book and kill you.” These poems don’t kill anyone, but the reader is left in no doubt whatsoever of my feelings about them.
Uncomfortable truths, observations about life, and unashamedly honest responses to hateful people make this collection of poems highly relatable and deeply, darkly satisfying.
They say there is a special place in hell reserved for those who prey on others, especially those who cannot defend themselves.
Until then, there is A Poet’s Curse.