Smoke the Peace Pipe
Smoke the Peace Pipe
Yellow Arrow is very excited to announce the release of our first chapbook, Smoke the Peace Pipe, by Roz Weaver. PDF copies are also available!
Smoke the Peace Pipe is a collection of poems inspired by the author's experience of trauma and how this settled in her body, sometimes as her own worst enemy. She encourages the possibility that we all can find hope and healing by showing up in the present moment, in the environment and with people around us, and through a shared appreciation of nature, spiritual exploration, and sacred connection with the Earth. By sitting and sharing a peace pipe with ourselves, we have an opportunity to bear what we thought was unbearable and make space for the possibility of a bigger picture.
Roz Weaver is a Liverpool-born, spoken-word performer and internationally published poet currently floating around West Yorkshire, England. She works as a social worker and therapist while studying for her MA in Creative Writing at Teeside University. Roz has been published in a number of journals, zines, and anthologies, including Snapdragon Journal, Token Magazine, and past issues of Yellow Arrow Journal. Her work was most recently on exhibit with Awakenings, a Chicago-based arts collective, as well as the London Design Festival. She has also performed at the Leeds International Festival and the renowned Edinburgh Fringe. Follow her on Instagram or Twitter.
To learn more about Roz, Smoke the Peace Pipe, and poetry as therapy, check out our recent interview with her.
Cover art: Joanne Baker
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Editorial Reviews:
“Creative writing is a well-recognized form of therapy. Reading poetry written by a poet-therapist aimed at describing and showing a path towards self-healing, can also be effective therapy for the reader. Roz Weaver, UK therapist, poet, social worker and spoken word performer, demonstrates the power of creative expression through poetry to heal from physical as well as psychological trauma in her first chapbook, Smoke the Peace Pipe. The cover, by Joanne Baker, illustrates the metaphor which is fully elucidated in the final poem of the same title.”
--Cynthia T. Hahn, Highland Park Poetry
“Roz manages to achieve a balance of sharing these deeply personal words while creating something many readers, particularly women, can relate to. The last line of Communion “We answer our own prayers” says so much in so few words. It’s something we should all remind ourselves of, in a world where so many of us tend to rest our hopes and dreams on other people or circumstances beyond our control. Sometimes we need to be more active in our own lives.”
“Roz’s debut collection ‘Smoke the Pipe Peace’ is really impactful in the sense she encourages the possibility that we all can find hope and healing by showing up in the present moment, in the environment, with people around us, and through a shared appreciation of nature, spiritual exploration, and sacred connection with the Earth. By sitting and sharing a peace pipe with ourselves, we have an opportunity to bear what we thought was unbearable and make space for the possibility of a bigger picture.”
“Roz Weaver’s ‘Smoke the Peace Pipe’ offers a soul-nourishing journey through a reclaiming of self after trauma. Her caring and courageously crafted words pull back facades to bring difficult truths to light. But this is not a heavy read. Roz also traces pathways of joy, hope and healing through her learning about – and leaning into – love. This collection is a gently fierce reckoning with Roz’s own resilience and power, and reminds us that we all carry immeasurable worth.”
--ROSE CONDO, Writer, Performer, Poet (The Empathy Experiment)
“Roz says that “smoke the peace pipe” is a metaphor for herself and recognising her trauma. This collection of poems could not reflect this more. Roz’s poetry is a brutally honest reflection of the internalised pain of trauma and how this impacts your body, your mind and your insides whilst reflecting on how she perceives the outside world - and it perceives her and her body.”
--RACHEL COLLINS, Feminist Book Club Leeds
“I had the privilege of seeing Roz perform some word spoken poetry at an open mic at the beginning of the year and her writing stayed with me. It was powerful stuff. This book has some great poems in it. She encompasses some really tough emotions in such a gentle but empathic way. Literal goosebumps and feels whilst reading this. Ridiculously good writing”
—shopmaz, Amazon reviewer