To Bleed is Woman: a dark poetry collection

Fair warning about this book: there is darkness enseamed in these covers.Throughout history and all over the world, to be woman is about so much more than an assignation at birth and we often pay a heavy price for that assignation. Womanhood speaks of dreams, fears, and travail. We love, we marry, we fight, we carry–and miscarry. But womanhood has a bloody side: rape, suicide, death, and stillbirth; climate change, pestilence, famine, and war; betrayal, pain, rage, but most of all, at least in my experience, grief.Through this illustrated collection of freeform poetry and prose, join me in reclaiming our cultural identity as women of different backgrounds, in connecting with a community who understands the pressures of cultural assimilation, and in reframing religion that we make our own with no input from men telling us what we should believe.Now allow me to set the stage for you: imagine a world of metaphor where Biblical characters intertwine with elements of mysticism and Arabian lore; where language echoes those of cultures seemingly disparate: the old English of the Amish and the Arabic of the Levant, both masterclasses of poetic turns of phrase. This collection unwraps a collision of hemispheres when an Amish woman and an Arab Muslim man unexpectedly cross paths.Disclaimer: Though this collection was written as an expression of my gender identity and experience, this book is in no way exclusive to those who identify as women nor does it seek to erase the experience of those who do not identify as women but have experienced many of the same challenges. Additionally, even among those who identify as women, each of us has a unique story or path and this collection in no way is intended to invalidate the journey of another.TRIGGER WARNING: rape, suicide, political and religious subjects, religious trauma, miscarriage, stillbirth Read more