An Anthology of Poetry and Art
Curated by Kirsten Fountain
This book contains our stories
Stories of survival
Stories that forged us
Stories that formed us
Stories that free us
Our voices
Our pain
Our pasts
Our shame
Once frozen in fear
Finally free to
FLY
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This beautiful and powerful book was designed for display.
Measuring 8.5 x 11 inches, our book creates a striking impression on a coffee table or bookshelf.
Both hardcover and ebook versions will be offered soon!
About Our Anthology of Healing Through Art
What do you do when your body can no longer house the brutalities of the life you have lived? This book is for readers who have experienced the darkness of trauma. It is also for those who want to better understand the impact of trauma on survivors. Our book is intended to support readers who are on the path toward the end of this darkness where light, healing, and hope can be found. Collectively, our co-creators confronted and freed what had long been frozen inside us.
Our stories are now held within this book, and our bodies are lighter.
An Invitation for Self-Care
While experiencing our book, you will read, see, and feel words and images that are arresting. These pages hold our truths. We came together to intentionally transmute our brutal realities into beautiful realizations. Therefore, our art may contain images including nudity, language, and descriptions of events that may be disturbing to some readers. Please care for yourself while you read. Viewer and reader discretion should be utilized.
About Our Artists
We believe that it is long overdue for us to feel empowered, rather than shamed, by the stories of our pasts.
Ten artists created eighteen works of art each in 2021 for this anthology. We met monthly to support each other as we created and healed individually and collectively. Each artist’s chapter is divided into three sections: six works that represent the root wounds of their Past, six works that represent how that root wound continues to show up in their Present, and six works that represent the hope found in the transmutation of their past and present into their triumphant Possible, where the light of hope is found.
Each chapter of our book represents an individual’s study of light and dark. That which forms us, and is formed by us. That which has been, is, and will be. That which was once frozen, and is now free.
Our Anthology’s Co-Creators Are Connected
We are connected through place, people, and personal pain.
We are survivors, fighters, healers, creatives, lovers, and seekers.
Together, we seek the light in our collective darkness.
Individually, we are the light we seek.
Creating our art allows us to shine.
Artist Highlights
Below is one representative work from each artist’s chapter. Click the button above their work to discover more about them, connect to their social media, and support their work.
![[A poem] Inside me
They shared a home
A mirror in my womb
Hearts reliant on each other
My heart reliant on them
I named them
Fed them
And dear God did I love them
But as many codependent things go
They could not last
As one heart stopped
So did the other
And mine stubbornly kept on beating
How dare I be able to survive
Something so unsurvivable
How dare life go on
When death was inside me
My body has refused to move on
Stuck in a constant state of loss
Maybe something else did die within
Maybe I’m walking around half alive
With death still inside me](https://i0.wp.com/freeingourfrozensongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/screen-shot-2022-06-20-at-9.00.40-am.png?resize=405%2C778&ssl=1)
![[A poem] Almost
I don’t know how many others
woke without their mothers
but I’m sure there are a few
out there
As a child
I was notified by the hum of the engine
idling in the drive that it was time for school
fog hanging in the evergreen mountains outside as
Dad readied himself for work and me for my day
small, simple acts of care that sometimes resulted
in mismatched socks or field trip permission slips
forgotten on the kitchen table, next to the kerosene lantern
But for every action missed by her, Dad was there with two:
two kisses atop my head when dropping me off at school
double the attention on my birthday, twice as much Halloween candy
a big kid, Dad was double the fun
It almost made up for her absence
Almost](https://i0.wp.com/freeingourfrozensongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/screen-shot-2022-06-20-at-8.58.43-am.png?resize=529%2C482&ssl=1)
![[A poem] Empty
One rice cake—breakfast
(dry)
One-quarter of a sandwich—lunch
(half is too much)
Just one bite
Just enough
Conveniently absent for dinner
Are you hungry?
No, thank you.
I already ate.
You swallowed WHOLE this illusion of power
You are FULL of self-criticism
GORGED with imperfections
Devouring every delicious pang
STARVED
For control
(out of control)
CRAVING control
(being controlled)
Face is gaunt
Sucked up
Legs too thin
Ass is gone
No tits
Ribs sticking out
Hip bones protruding
Size 0
Perfect
Perfectly
E
M
P
T
Y
And still powerless](https://i0.wp.com/freeingourfrozensongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/screen-shot-2022-07-19-at-11.15.20-am.png?resize=429%2C878&ssl=1)
![[A poem] The title is the word "Authenticity" which is struck through.
"To Whom it May Concern,
No
I haven’t seen
[felt]
[done]
[heard]
[lived]
what you have.
Yet,
I know what you need.
I define your success.
I decide
if you fit
[and where]
[and when]
[and how]
[and why].
Conform,
bend,
become
[like me].
We don’t have room
for authenticity
[you].
Warm regards,
Your Family
[Friends]
[Partners]
[Church]
[School]
[Employer]
[Government]
[Dominant Culture]"](https://i0.wp.com/freeingourfrozensongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/screenshot-2023-10-10-at-6.54.01e280afpm.png?resize=257%2C937&ssl=1)
We Are Creating an Open and Inclusive Community
A Note From Kirsten Fountain
This book is about confronting and then healing what is holding us down, back, and in, then co-creating a future in which we are all free to be. Pain is a universal feeling. Transmuting our pain into our power should be an inclusive effort.
None of us are free until we are all free.
I intend this community to be open and affirming, biased toward belonging, safety, and significance while supporting freedom in thought, deed, and action that does no harm.
If you would like to learn more, or access support, southern Oregon, statewide, and national resources can be found here.
Join Our Community
If you would like to keep up with our artists and their continued creative healing endeavors, and/or share your own healing creations with us, you are invited to follow and join our social media communities.
It is our hope that using the hashtag #FreeingOurFrozenSongs, interacting with and sharing your encouragement for others as they post, as well as sharing your healing journey from past, to present, to possible will continue to inspire healing in ourselves, each other, and the world.
This Book Was Written on Stolen Land
We would like to acknowledge that this book was written primarily on ancestral lands stolen from the Klamath Tribes, the Shasta Indian Nation, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, and the Coquille Indian Tribe. We are humbled by the fact that we are living, creating, and working on these lands.
It is our hope that the visitors to this page and the readers of our book will learn more about these Indigenous Peoples. They are still here. Their inherent, sacred worth and value as human beings have been ignored each time a treaty has not been honored, and their land and rights have been denied them. This is unconscionable. Learn more about the broken treaties of Oregon’s First Peoples here.
Find out whose land you are on with nativeland.ca. We encourage our readers and community members to learn more, and then to take action in whatever ways they are most gifted, or called. The beautiful documentary, Gather, and the illuminating podcast, All My Relations, are wonderful places to begin or continue learning more.
Healing and Hope:
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