Letters From Before

If you've ever left a lover by letter; if you've suffered abuse at the hands of those you love; if you've experienced the excruciating and impossible loss of a child, Antoinette Lisena pens a retrospective poem for you. In this debut collection, Lisena reaches out through the written word to old paramours and previous selves to explore the emotional terrain of desire, deprivation, and disappointment. As the poems shift at a quickening pace from the peaceful and intimate union of the present into a painful past, the speaker seeks closure, resolution, and forgiveness through the freshly self-aware lens of dark ink on the bright page. In that opened space, this collection offers those who struggle with the unexpected torments of life hope, healing, and proof that we can indeed rewrite our own histories.