This week I have the pleasure of inviting exciting talent, Susan Darlington, to reflect on her latest collection, the wonderful Traumatropic Heart (Selcouth Station, 2021)

The theme for my chapbook started to form when I came across the word ‘traumatropic’ in an excerpt from Paul Anthony Jones’ The Cabinet of Calm: Soothing Words for Troubled Times.

His definition of the word is, “the regrowth of a plant or tree, often in a bizarre shape or direction, as a result of earlier damage or trauma, like a lightning strike.” I thought it was a great metaphor for the trials and setbacks that we endure and that can send our lives in a direction we never anticipated.

The concept gave me a structure for the poems I had already written. I arranged them in a loose narrative arc that starts in a largely nature-based setting – with trees, birds and humans entwining…