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The Blue Dragonfly - healing through poetry

by Veronica Eley

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Roger Langen said: " Here is a list of review excerpts and comments to date:

"For the helping professional, the gift of this book is its authentic representation of a terrifying disorder captured by rich poetic symbolism." -- Sherry Reiter, Journal of Poetry Therapy (June Here is a list of review excerpts and comments to date:

"For the helping professional, the gift of this book is its authentic representation of a terrifying disorder captured by rich poetic symbolism." -- Sherry Reiter, Journal of Poetry Therapy (June 2022)

"A remarkably convincing demonstration of the power of words to rend apart secrets and silences, and to weave together from the shreds a different sort of wholeness." -- Amy K. Griffiths, Trauma Psychology News, American Psychological Association (Summer 2023)

"The best poetry book of the year is from a 71-year-old debut writer on healing from trauma." -- Morgan Mullin, The Coast (December 2021)

"A magnificent achievement … womanspeak unafraid to tell it all … searing honesty … how beautiful, how brave!" -- Ramabai Espinet, author, The Swinging Bridge (Harper Collins)

"Lovely and courageous." -- Veronica O’Keane, The Rag and Bone Shop: How We Make Memories and Memories Make Us (Penguin Random House)

"The poems in this collection are ripe to bursting with feeling. Their richness comes from the deep truths that give rise to them. This is a moving work." -- Joe Kertes, The Afterlife of Stars (Penguin Random House)

"A beautiful and vulnerable body of work.' -- Alexia Major, Atlantic Books Today

"It’s a keeper. We have included it among our selections for Best Poetry of 2021." -- James Fisher, editor, The Miramichi Reader

"Beautiful, brave poems … tracing – with searing honesty – the poet’s healing journey from childhood trauma to a place of wellbeing." -- Allison Lawlor, Halifax Chronicle-Herald

"I can envisage copies of The Blue Dragonfly in every psychiatric ward in the country. So many people would be helped by it, inspired perhaps to create some kind of record of their own journeys through the hell of mental illness, to something like peace and self-acceptance. Despite its examination of some of the darker corners of the human psyche, The Blue Dragonfly made me quite happy as I read it, happy to see all the poet has endured and come out the other side of. The very act of creating such a record has clearly been therapeutic, her use of language remarkable." -- Chris Marks, Something of Creation (White Mountain) ...more "

Sep 30, 2023 08:08AM · see review