A Woman’s Write: Strong and Free is a collection of poetry capturing the experience of 73 women learning to understand themselves as they come to terms with addiction. It also contains a wonderful collection of photographs by Carolyn Leger who has faced her own personal battles. The women are all members of the of St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton’s Womankind Addiction Service, Ontario, Canada.
This collection of poetry and prose from women in recovery is a fire walk: a searing, barefooted dash over the hot coals of desperation, despair and self-destruction. Startling, often hypnotic photographs, supplied by one of the writers, drift through the text like sparks from the embers. These women have been burned into blessedness. –
Duane Tucker, Actor, Writer for Screen and TV, Passenger Magazine Poet of the Year 2002
The program encourages women to empower themselves by expressing their uninhibited creativity. The poetry often has a wonderful rawness that takes you into the depths of addiction, yet you can feel that the writing brings its own hope. Demons are captured and crafted on each page, allowing them to be let go. It states on the bad cover of the book:
It is Monday night in a sparse basement room at Womankind, an addiction service operated by St. Joseph’s Healthcare. A dozen women are around the table. An unlikely group who, in most ways, have little in common.
What they do have in common connects them immediately and powerfully. They are all recovering addicts. Some are alcoholics, some are drug users, a good number are both.
And they are all authors.
To learn more about the program and the women that participate in it, please check out some of the articles by Susan Clairmont in thespec.com
On October 10th there was a book launch at the Hamilton Art Gallery.