Gina Ashline Screaming Behind Closed Lips

Annotation

Screaming Behind Closed Lips is a book of my poetry and selected sketches that validate and uplift a womans experience with longing, domestic violence, crime and oppression, as well as her connection with other women of strength. It is for everyone, yet it is raw, honest and sometimes biting. It is my hope that the reader finds his/her own voice in the words and images, enough to feel a sense of belonging, and enough to find his/her own voice. Within the poetry, the reader will see a young girls longing to know her birth mother, a young womans longing to have someone desire her, a young married womans ordeal with enduring an abusive marriage, and her struggle to escape that relationship. There are two poems dealing with rape, including a gang rape. The featured poem, Outside a Movie House in Tupelo, Mississippi, paints the picture of a nave teenagers rape experience and the frustration and confusion afterwards. The strongest experiences are most easily written in a formed structure, including rhyme. Sometimes its easier to have some sort of control with the written word, when expressing an ordeal that was beyond control physically. All is not gloom and doom. Each poem has a strong statement to make, and does so with an ah line, or with an image to bring about hope. When a writer can put a name to something traumatic or tragic, then he/she has some power. I hope that in reading this book, the reader will sense that same power in himself/herself. Its freedom. Its healing. There is nothing in this book that bashes males, and, in fact, I invite males to come along on this journey and be a guide and an aide and a companion. Sexuality, spirituality, strength and endurance go hand-in-hand for me and I certainly enjoy a hand-in-hand experience with the opposite gender. This book is for me, and for you, and for anyone who is, knows, and loves a woman who has survived (or not) any of the experiences in Screaming Behind Closed Lips. It is powerful; it is hopeful; it is open and honest. It can be read behind a closed door, or shouted out loud to a large audience. It is my offering to you, and my gift to myself.