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First Friday Poetry Night! Book Launch for Erin Aurelia
Friday, January 3, 2025
7:00-8:30 PM
Birdhouse Books
1001 Main Street
Vancouver, WA, 98660
Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna welcome poet Erin Aurelia for January’s First Friday Poetry Night!
First Friday Poetry Night! is a poetry series featuring an everchanging slate of talented local poets hosted by Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna. Catch us each First Friday at 7pm in the heart of VDA’s Art Walk. Drop by early to browse the books, soak in the art, and pick up some delicious treats upstairs at Short & Sweet before the show.
Erin Aurelia writes poetry like a surgeon, a spelunker, an exorcist, and an astronaut: she cuts out tumors, traverses the subterranean, faces down demons, and wanders the cosmos. She edits nonfiction books by day as the owner of Sunshine Editorial Services & Book Coaching and writes and performs poetry by night. She is the author of Bone & Stars: A Constellation of Poems of Healing and Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse, in which she writes on the themes of trauma recovery, reclamation of self, and the unflinching embrace of powerful emotions. Erin is also the author of The Torch of Brighid: Flametending for Transformation, and her writing has been featured in two anthologies by Goddess Ink: Brigit: Sun of Womanhood, and Stepping into Ourselves: An Anthology of Priestesses, and in an anthology by Moon Books titled Paganism 101: An Introduction to Paganism by 101 Pagans. She served as the Poetry Managing Editor for the Spring 2021 edition of VoiceCatcher, an online women’s literary journal featuring short stories, poetry, and art by women of the Pacific Northwest. Erin is the mother of two grown sons and lives in Vancouver, Washington, where she is known for her lyrical, dynamic performances in shows and open mics, in which she is frequently accompanied by her favorite local musicians. Find her online at www.sunshneeditorialservices.com/erin-aurelia-poet, and follow her poetry on Facebook and Instagram at erinaureliapoetry.
Bone & Stars: A Constellation of Poems of Healing and Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse is a constellation of poems that forms the shape of one woman’s transformation from suffering emotional abuse and being rendered silent to finding liberation and reclaiming her voice. Each of these poems reveals a visceral determination to truly live, not just as the walking dead of someone numb with denial, but as someone who is their whole and defiantly shining self. Together, this composition of poems takes the reader through the poet’s journey of escaping an abusive marriage, reconciling what it means to endure an abuse that does not leave marks, healing the damage she endured, and recovering her lost voice to rise like a phoenix, fierce and unapologetic. This poetry collection is for those who have endured, are enduring, or wonder whether they are experiencing an emotionally abusive relationship, as we do not always recognize what we are experiencing when there is no blood to show us, so we need words to serve as that mirror instead. This book is a confirmation that all kinds of abuse cuts, wounds, and kills the spirit, as it is intended to; that enduring it is not our fault; and that we can liberate and recover ourselves and our voices to live as our true selves, shining and whole, as the generative and creative Sun of our own world, rather than as a moon that can only revolve around and reflect light for others.
Endorsements:
“In this bold and empowering collection, poet Erin Aurelia “keens in the key/ of grief” about the gap between all that is “supposed to be” and what we actually receive from others. Bone & Stars chronicles her harrowing escape from an abusive marriage and eventual reclamation of her self-worth and autonomy. Realizing that her “blossoming is not yet done,” our hero decides to “steal my life/ back for myself” and “dare to begin to dream” of a new life “as an insistent,/ unquenchable flame.” The overwhelming beauty of Erin’s tale will make you want to gift a copy to a friend who is currently stuck to give her the courage to find her own “iridescent path to freedom.” Prepare to be completely devastated in the best possible way, then rescued by the liberating magic of Erin's life-changing verse. This is poetry with the power to save lives.” —Christopher Luna, inaugural Poet Laureate of Clark County, Washington (2013-2017), and Publisher, Editor, and Writing Coach, Printed Matter Vancouver. Find him online at https://www.christopherlunapoetry.com and https://www.instagram.com/christopherjluna/.
“Erin Aurelia’s collection Bone & Stars showcases the rollercoaster of emotions and states of being both in and after an abusive relationship, the defeatedness and the pulling of one’s self back up out of the darkness, the learning and relearning what is one’s truth, the pain of being put in a low place, and how much it hurts to dig out of as well, like in the lines spoke to me words / soft as gold in the poem “Diamonds,” and there is a ghost in / this house / painting corners with / cobwebs and she breathed stars into her cells in “Haunted.”
"Erin creates scene after scene that puts the reader alongside her journey and every metaphor that is used for the abuser creating the sense of being surrounded, helpless, and overtaken until she writes our way out, as in the poem “Eyes” that shows us, those eyes feasted on my death / feasted / on my brokenness and the poem “Sweet Rain” that begins with You didn’t come.
"By the end of this collection, Erin has hauled her voice, along with us, down through the underworld and back up with a newfound strength and a rebuilt confidence. This collection is best consumed all at once to receive this energy: I am not the carnage / rotting in the heat, / I am the lion.” —Rebecca Smolen, poet, writing coach, private editor, Gateless Method Facilitator, and author of her chapbook, Womanhood and Other Scars, from The Poetry Box. Her writing is most recently found in the Unchaste Anthology, Vol. 2 & 3, Mutha Magazine, VoiceCatcher, and forthcoming in Poeming Pigeon-Cosmos, and Shout, the anti-fascist anthology from Not A Pipe Publishing. Find her online at www.rebeccawritespdx.com.
“Like the phoenix that rises from the ashes, Erin Aurelia rises from the gnarled trunk of narcissistic abuse. Her debut collection, Bones & Stars, is an unrelenting testament to the liberating power of poetry, music, and community, and a severe reminder that abuse can and does happen to the most giving of us. Rage with Erin as she shatters a complex past filled with grief, resentment, and denial, and transmutes her pain into a lyrical frenzy of empowered passion. Then, witness her rebirth as she removes the spoon of a sacrificial feeding and changes it out for a pen on fire, recovering her soul and her sanctuary, one fistful of poems at a time.” —Morgan Paige, poet, artist, co-host of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, and author of Lick the Psychic: Poems by Morgan Paige. Find her online at lickthepsychic.com.
LINKS:
https://www.sunshineeditorialservices.com/erin-aurelia-poet
https://www.facebook.com/erinaureliapoetry
https://www.facebook.com/authorerinaurelia
https://www.instagram.com/erinaureliapoetry/
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Birdhouse Books, 1001 Main St, Vancouver, WA 98660-2894, United States,Vancouver, Washington
