Honoring Survivors this Domestic Violence Awareness Month!

 

This October, we honor Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a time to hold space for survivors, reckon with systems of harm, and recommit to building communities rooted in safety, dignity, and love. For me, poetry is testimony. It is a way of naming pain without shame, reclaiming voice, and witnessing the quiet courage that lives in every survivor’s breath.

Today, I invite you to read, write, and reflect with reverence the stories that demand to be heard.

✨Poetry as Survivor Witness

Poetry born of survival is sacred. It speaks in bruised metaphors and radiant truths. It remembers what was silenced. It reclaims what was stolen. It is resistance, resilience, and radical care.

As the poet Audre Lorde once said,
"Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence."

That’s the power of survivor poetry: it insists that healing is possible, and that using our voices is a form of liberation.

📚 Poets and Poems to Read & Remember

Poets and Poems that Speak to Trauma, Healing, and Transformation

📖 Explore more at Poetry Foundation and Button Poetry

✨Writing Prompt: Poetry & Power

Try this prompt to honor your own or others’ journey toward healing:
Write a poem titled “The Body Remembers Me” that includes:

— a color that evokes emotion

— a line that was never spoken aloud

— imagery that demonstrates reclamation or resistance

Your words are part of the healing. Let them rise.

Today, we honor not just survival, but the living legacy of those who have endured, resisted, and rebuilt. May we listen deeply, speak truthfully, and write with care.

Your Pensive Poet,
SSS

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