In the end, we all become stories.

Margaret Atwood

It’s been a while since I’ve been back in this space. In the interim, I sold my house, bought a new one, moved, lost a close friend to a pulmonary embolism, got a book contract, wrote said book, turned in the manuscript, contracted Covid 19, helped my mom recover from gallstones, and a head injury, and taught a full teaching load.

Yes. I’ve been busy. Crazy busy.

Nothing happens. And nothing happens. Then, everything happens.

Fay Weldon

Here’s the description from the back cover of my new book, Evanescent Creature.

Evanescent Creature: Poems & Meditations explores the wisdom & life cycle of women through the archetypes of the wounded/magical/gifted child, the maiden, the mother, and the crone (Divine Feminine). These poems explore birth, sickness, old age, death, and rebirth. In them, Berry unpacks a myriad of experiences that affect and transform all women as they move through their lives.

Berry examines the evanescent creature she’s contained since birth, the one who is empathic and sensitive, and fragile in a world that often makes her terrified and exhausted. She reveals the shattered beauty of the young woman she was, a woman as muse, catalyst, & traveler in search of all the errant & lost parts of her most secret self.

She remembers her experience as a daughter, unraveling her longing for more in the face of the pressures of a society that has long wanted women to remain small & stuck living amputated lives. She examines her current role as a caregiver – as her mother’s mother – watching as her mother’s essence disappears and she descends into full-blown dementia.

And finally, she ruminates on her sense of the furious, incandescent, numinous strength of women. She raises her voice in defense of the Divine Feminine nature of life itself, of this earth, and its oceans, forests, and luminous wild animals.  Evanescent Creature is a book of searing poems and meditations seeking to offer solace and nourishment to women as they search for answers to the grief and beauty of life.

If you are interested in knowing more, or in reviewing the book, feel free to reach out here.

You can purchase a copy of Evanescent Creature here.

I hope those of you who have read my essays for years will sample my poetry now as well!

A taste…

And your doubt can become

Your ally, your fierce reminder

Of every blackened backroad

Every barren stream and

Every long moment

you stumbled through life

in red shoes the size of thimbles

Shoes that cut the arches

Of your white feet and

Told you to

accept only breadcrumbs.

Never to gulp the hungry air

Or open the shutters in your chest

To reveal your lion heart

Your doubts used to be the fairy tale

You spoke into dark stars under

The bright gaze of Venus

No more, dear heart.

No more.

Shavawn M. Berry

Copyright 2023 Shavawn M. Berry

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