When Home Is Not Safe: Writings on Domestic Verbal, Emotional and Physical Abuse

by Judith Skillman (Editor), Linera Lucas (Editor)

Overview

Even if you haven't been hurt by domestic violence, someone you know has and wishes they could tell you about it. Perhaps you are a therapist, teacher, academic, or social worker who wants to help those who are suffering. Or maybe you are in an abusive relationship and need to know that you are not alone.

The poems, memoirs, and creative nonfiction pieces collected here tell of real incidents of abuse, as well as of those who left destructive and unsalvageable relationships. The beauty and truth of the language, as well as the honesty and courage, set this anthology apart from self-help manuals and academic treatises on domestic violence. This book offers a path forward to healing, health and fulfillment, using the power of art to give voice where voice has been stifled, forgotten, overlooked or denied.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476683928
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	09/03/2021
Pages:	221
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.45(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Judith Skillman is the recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust, and has published twenty collections of poetry. She is a faculty member at the Hugo House in Seattle, Washington. Linera Lucas won the Crucible Fiction Prize and her poetry and short stories have been widely published. She has taught at the University of Washington Women’s Center and Hugo House in Seattle.

Table of Contents

Preface Judith Skillman Linera Lucas 1

Introduction Judith Skillman Linera Lucas 4

I Home

Heidi Seaborn

Weather 9

Drafting a Flight Plan 9

Jennifer Jenkins

Hit Me 10

Susan April

The Ballet 13

Howie Good

Anger Is an Arrow 20

Stick Figure Family 20

The Secret Goldfish 20

Emma Brousseau

What's True of the Garden Pea 21

Wren Tuatha

Fissure 25

Chelsea Clammer

Balcony, 3 a.m. 26

Nina Fosati

Her Father's Daughter 28

RK Taylor

Holy / days 30

Lynn Magill

You Smiled 30

Michael 31

Cynthia Steele

Words "Too Dark" for the Father's Day Edition 33

Kurt Olsson

Packs 41

Drowned 42

The Best of a Bad Year 42

J. Flynn Doncaster

Ever Closer 43

II Trauma

Lindsay Erdman

Abroad 46

LeeAnn Olivier

Kintsugi 46

Aimee Parkison

Girl in Rape Kit 54

Victoria Elizabeth Ruwi

A Slice of Summer 55

Mary Ellen Talley

Wine song 59

How to Survive Abuse 59

A Steady Whip 59

Ogu Chukwuebuka Kizito

Voices from the Streets 60

Carolyne Wright

Mandamientos: Lover to Beloved 63

I Forgive 63

Paul Rousseau

Kitchen Table 64

Jonaki

It wasn't the first time he hit me 66

Darlene Goetzman

Reading the Lines 67

Anne Spollen

From Where I Live Now 76

Izzy Wilson

Why Are They Fighting? 79

Christina Hoag

When His Words Became a Drug 82

Amelia Goldman

The Fixer 88

Sally Quon

Beginnings 88

Gayelene Carbis

His face right in my face 93

The Weight of Words in Our Hands Like Water 96

This is what happened 97

Kelsey Brown

A Game of Cat and Mouse 100

Polly Buckingham

Excerpt-The Queen in the Mirror 110

III PTSD

Tina Barry

Pine 122

Roxanne James

Counting Raindrops 123

Lillo Way

Pearls Before Swine 126

Sally Showalter

Stone Lies 127

H.M. Clark

Fire Line 131

Danielle Hark

I keep secrets stashed in a lock box 134

Abandoned Doll 134

Cold sheets 135

Secrets stashed in tiny orange pill bottles 136

Lexy Courneya

Memoir Excerpts 136

Memoir Excerpts II 141

Joyce Hayden

The Out of Body Girl 142

Marjorie Maddox

Eiffel Tower 154

On a Hot Summer Night for Revenge 155

The Truth of Lies, The Lies of Truth 156

Sharp. 157

IV In Retrospect

Susan Landgraf

The Woman Who Held Her Tongue 159

Carol Smallwood

House of Cards 159

A Picnic 160

Rosanne Ehrlich

Two-Year Slide in Brooklyn Heights 161

Linera Lucas

Saddle Up 172

Signal 173

Lindsey Heatherly

Weaving Rope 173

Robert Kingett

My First Online Love 177

Alice Ting Liu

Tug of War 180

Judith Skillman

Trellis 183

Years Later 184

Jeff Burd

Lost in Transmission 185

Mary Zelinka

Last Supper 188

Sailor Holladay

Red Flag 190

Alison Stone

Heretic 194

Tina Kelley

Pushed Out of the Chevy, She Adjusts Her Miniskirt 195

Meggie Royer

Twenty Years of Rain 195

Acknowledgments 197

Acknowledgments of Previously Published Work 199

Notes 201

About the Contributors 203

Index 211

Editorial Reviews

Anthologies so often hold one subject up, turn it this way and that, show us crevices and winks of insight, make connections we haven’t before perceived. Judith Skillman and Linera Lucas’s recent anthology about domestic abuse does just that…. This is a book of collected truths, a conversation about the facets of abuse…. Skillman and Lucas clarify the nuance of abuse from the beginning, through the title, and their introduction defines and describes how it can be loud or quiet.… I’m amazed at the hard and clear power of the language of many of these writers and stories. These writers have not only endured abuse but offer psychological clarity for those who need it.”—Literary Mama

From the Publisher