Gabriela Marie Milton – Editor’s Note on Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women

When I posted the call for submissions to Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women, I wanted to compile an anthology that would underscore how powerful women are, and how much they can accomplish regardless of the adversities most of them go through. I had no idea that – while reading the poems I included in this book – a larger story will emerge. I can only judge this story with my own sensibility.  

First, there is my complicity with the poems from the book. I am a woman, and I can relate to the consequences that our patriarchal society has on my fellow women. The stories the poems here tell are my stories even if I did not live them all.   Either Jung’s “objective psyche” exists, or I underwent a process of osmosis while reading the stunning work I selected.  All abuses described here, as well as all victories, became mine.

Second, I can assure you dear readers that you will not regret a moment immersing yourselves in this book. It is not important whether a poem is born like a child, or constructed like a temple. The type of poetry is always secondary to its substance. It’s a matter of preference. The poems in this book are poems of substance regardless of their form. They grab you by the throat.  They scream listen to me. They bring you to your knees.  They inscribe on each page – with a multiplicity of voices coming from all sexes – the astonishing power women have. They are exceptional poems.  

Third, is this a feminist book? One could see it as such regardless of what definition of feminism one employs.  However, our minds and souls can transcend definitions. We can go beyond reflections. The poems in this book are not reflections or merely copies of life.  They do not belong to certain metaphysics of feminism and/or patriarchy. The poems in this book are life itself.  

Welcome to women’s lives my dear readers.

You will enjoy this ride.

I promise you.

Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women, edited by Gabriela Marie Milton and published by Ingrid Wilson/Experiments in Fiction will be released in the first part of June. Artwork by Nick Reeves.

Gabriela Marie Milton
#1 Amazon Bestselling Author
Books:
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings