Pearls Hang in Dark Clouds

At the onset of a bout with mental illness that erupted at the age of seventeen was when the author penned her first three poems, barring a few rhyming poems written as a child. Recovery began immediately. After the standard E.E.G. and prescribed psychiatric therapy, the worst of it was short lived. Having moved from the north to a stretch of the Bible Belt, Nashville, Tennessee, at age thirty, also sets a central theme for this deep psycho/spiritual journey through an interesting labyrinth of 1960s and 70s subculture that still lives on today. We are then transported into some profound and varied as well as a dappling of somewhat more traditional experiences with Christian spirituality. The medium for this conceptual and insightful work is the author's long studied and matured art of poetry and free verse which also includes some prayers, short prose, lyrics, and original illustrations mixed in. With more than seventy poems plus other offerings, the endowment is genuinely entertaining as all creative works of art should be, but on a very thought educing level with its elements of inner personal struggles, bohemia, and the spiritual path it has all taken and led to. Easily taken in small portions, and perhaps it should be, as the writer wishes to evoke a contemplative response and challenge one's own inner heart and soul's state of being along this beautiful conundrum we call life. Take a journey down a long and winding, broken road with all its curves, hills, and valleys. The winds will take you higher along this wild and elegant ...eloquent ride.