After the Fall: Dirges Among Ruins

Book excerpt: This collection explores the creative space of poetry as a means to unravel feelings evoked by the violence of war or by everyday traumatic events. One may come to terms with uncomfortable, including unspeakable, feelings by describing them with imagery from nature and one’s immediate environment. By participating in grieving, the self can better face any lingering effects of trauma. In this creative space, dramatic speakers retell stories and give vent to contradictory feelings through silences and free play. Their accounts attest to the dappled beauty of the human condition even if the full nature, scope and effects of traumatic memories are always beyond their grasp.