Some of us did not know who we were before now.
Some of us were not affirmed. Some of us did not know who we were before now and were not affirmed because the people who raised us did/do not know who they were and were/are not affirmed. Some of us were raised without a great deal of choice about anything; whom we got along with, the places we went, what we eat and how much of it, who we wanted to hug and for how long, how we were able to express our own happiness, how we reacted to the undesirable, how we might have chosen to protect ourselves…. and it shows, it shows.
Yrsa Daley Ward
Like so many others, I was not raised with much autonomy and I was not encouraged to have much of a voice. Except in storytelling, which is where I saw the very first positive reactions to anything I have to say. Even then I swallowed my truth when it came to being face-to-face with people, in real life. Sometimes I still do it now, the truth swallowing. The downplaying of myself. Still learning. Still growing. Growing.
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‘You will come away bruised. You will come away bruised but this will give you poetry.’
Raw and stark, the poems in Yrsa Daley-Ward’s breakthrough collection strip down her reflections on the heart, life, the inner self, coming of age, faith, and loss to their essence. They resonate to the core of experience.
Yrsa Daley Ward
bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward is available here.
