Today I want to share with you my interview at the amazing Word Craft Poetry site that took place a week ago.
In this post I discuss with Colleen why I write poetry, specifically haiku, and I also talk about my forthcoming poetry collection, Vampirical Verse.
Check it out at Meet The Poet.
This Is Me, the e-book has been launched today!
A serpent biting at my breast Myself a rotting sepulchre. I am the living dead Carrying the Crab Whose offspring multiply within. Both fang and claw Eat away my flesh Draining me of life.
Another biographical offering from Freya Pickard, tracing her development both as a person and a poet from her early twenties to mid-forties.
Freya Pickard is a cancer survivor, whose fight for life has forever changed her. These changes are reflected in a variety of poems she permits to be published here.
I want to be exciting, revolutionary, unpredictable, I will cut my hair short and dye it purple, I'll pierce my body and get tattooed in unmentionable places.
Initially determined to be single, Freya reveals what it was like to discover her soulmate. Enjoying physical and mental fitness, she tells how she struggles post cancer.
Always an observer, Freya looks within and without to catalogue her journey through an eventful life.
You don’t need to have read either Insides or My Mythology, but if you have, you’ll find This Is Me continues the threads of imagination and post-cancer trauma.
half light – otherworld shadowed mist conceals land transient journey
This Is Me is available from Kindle (all marketplaces), Kobo, iBooks, Nook and many other online stores.
Watch the book trailer HERE!
Listen to Freya’s playlist for This Is Me HERE!
In 2014 Freya Pickard was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Insides is the inner journey, charting her progress through colostomy, removal of the tumour and chemotherapy. Dealing with the dark matter of cancer and facing death three times in six months, this collection is a positive affirmation of hope and life.
To tell the tale of her darkest nightmare, Freya uses blank verse, haiku, tanka, cinquain, elfje, lantune and her very own freyan verse. The poetry ebbs and flows from despair and fear to determination and sheer grit to get her through to a stage of recovery. But, as she finds and expresses through her journal notes which find their way into short form poems, recovery happens in many stages and isn’t as immediate as she hopes.
This collection will bring comfort and renewed determination to anyone dealing with a life-threatening illness. And, it is hoped, that those on the edges, watching from afar, will be enabled to identify more with the sufferers of cancer.
Watch the video about it at here
Available at Amazon UK and Amazon US
Currently available only as an e-book, a paperback version will be released in 2017.
In an “outside of myself” sort of way, I was quite interested in my initial reaction to Freya’s poetry. During my first read-through I was shocked, even repulsed, by the subject matter – but I think that just goes to show the power of the way it was written. On a second reading I was aware of feeling both sympathy for the writer but also a morbid curiosity – colostomy is not something that’s talked about much, so I wanted to understand it more and also to explore my own horror at medical procedures (I’m terrified of hospitals and having procedures carried out on me by relative strangers). It took me a third read-through to break through the social taboo of discussing the most basic of body functions and really begin to appreciate each poem separately, rather than as a whole collection. J Poulter
These poems gave me a glimpse of Freya’s suffering yet she is filled with hope. The poems are all very special, treasures to be kept and shared with others. E Choi
Irate Ocean was so exquisitely expressed. I felt this was Freya feeling positive and appreciating the wonders of nature, breathing it in and her senses absorbing every particle with heightened sensitivity. S Evans
I love the themes of nature and the seasons within Freya’s poetry. C Sergienko
Hurry! Hurry! The reduced price of my poetry collection, Insides, will revert to the full price at midday on Thursday, 15th December 2016… If you purchase books from Amazon US, you’ve only got a few hours left to get hold of a copy of Insides for just 99 cents!
Learn how I accepted cancer, embraced it and determined to be rid of it, whatever the cost.
Discover how frail I felt after surgery, how long it took me to come to terms with losing my womb.
Become aware of the mental anguish of those who have had cancer and chemotherapy; how alien they feel, how disjointed and out of synch they find themselves when “it is all over”. For it is never “all over”, as I discover and start to learn to live with the aftermath of deathly trauma.
Check out this moving video at YouTube.
Be inspired by this true life story …
My first poetry collection, Insides, is still available to buy at a reduced price at Amazon US. It’s still only 99 cents until midday, Thursday, 15th December 2016…
Insides is a mixture of short form poetry blended with my “clippings”. To tell the tale of my darkest nightmare, I use blank verse, haiku, tanka, cinquain, elfje, lantune and my very own freyan verse.
The poetry ebbs and flows from despair and fear to determination and sheer grit to get me through to a stage of recovery. But, as I find and express through my journal notes which find their way into short form poems, recovery happens in many stages and isn’t as immediate as I hoped or wished.
This collection will bring comfort and renewed determination to anyone dealing with a life-threatening illness. And, it is hoped, that those on the edges, watching from afar, will be enabled to identify more with the sufferers of cancer.
Check out this moving video at YouTube.
Get a glimpse into the amazing world of a cancer survivor…
Dragonscale Clippings 