Bleeding Orchid by Ruth Anne Garcia

A personal collection of poems that is sure to have a strong emotional impact on anyone who has experienced a major illness.

The book contains 55 poems, themed around the three categories of Diagnosis, Sickness and Surgeries, and Remission and Beyond.

Each poem is a heartfelt, personal outpouring of the author’s soul as she shares her journey through diagnosis, treatment and recovery.

This is a beautifully produced book of poems that deal with a difficult time in the author’s life, but which spoke to me about the difficulties in my own life.

Grief, Explain and Fatigue are the poems that stood out to me in this excellent collection. I know I will be revisiting these poems many times.

Anyone who has experienced serious illness can empathize with the betrayal of your body and the pain, fear and shame that goes with it. The horribleness of endless doctors and treatments, even when they are nice, and made all the more difficult when they aren’t. The distance illness drives between you and loved ones, both in mental and emotional understanding as well as through physical limitations.

All these subjects and more are dealt with in these honest, brave, moving poems. I applaud the author for sharing and wish her well on her continued journey.

I award Bleeding Orchid…