The Story Behind the Story with Author/Poet Michelle McLean of New Brunswick Canada.

 

Michelle is back and we couldn’t be happier.

 

She is sharing the SBTS of her new poetry collection, a touching personal journey.

She has been a welcome guest before and if you missed it, please go HERE.

Read on my friends.

 

Michelle McLean is a poet, clinical social worker and addictions counsellor, animal and nature lover, and collector of treasure in all forms. Her poetry has found homes in Quills, elm & ampersand, Ascent Aspirations, Other Voices, Peacock Journal, Understorey, and others. Her collection of children’s poetry, When Pigs Fly and Other Poems, was published in 2020 by Chapel Street Editions. Her eldest daughter, Sophie Arseneau, is the illustrator and her youngest daughter, Lily Arseneau, is a contributing illustrator. Michelle and her family live in the small village of Bath, New Brunswick.

Title:  Tesserae

Synopsis:

Tesserae is a poetry collection that traces the journey of trauma, grief, addiction and recovery.  It explores both what is shattered, and the various ways we seek to rebuild.  The term “tesserae” refers to small pieces of stone, glass, tile or any other material used in the creation of a mosaic.  The mosaic is our lives, which can be so messy, painful and sharp, but somehow still beautiful.  That’s what I’ve learned and continue to learn.  We can sometimes find ourselves utterly broken by the things that happen to us.  We also have the power, artistry and resilience to rebuild and make something new. 

 

The Story Behind the Story: 

Ernest Hemingway once said, “write hard and clear about what hurts”.  I believe that’s what I did in this book.  I wrote these poems for myself, for my own healing.  From the time I was a young child, I felt compelled to write about my experiences in order to better understand them and poetry has always provided a safe space for me to maneuver large, loud and often complicated, messy feelings in a way that simultaneously provided a sense of freedom and containment.  While intensely personal material, I opted to pursue publication because…well, there’s just something special about seeing my words in print and holding a published volume in my hands, something I created. 

This collection is heavy content.  I’ve described it as “equal parts scream and lullaby”.  I was twelve years old when my sister Tracey was killed in a horrific accident.  She was fifteen.  This utterly shattered our family.  The loss of a child is the worst loss imaginable.  It’s unfathomable (thankfully) to many of us.  Where is there space for the grief of sibling loss within this magnitude of tragedy?  I certainly didn’t know as a child and didn’t even know where to begin to look or even how to ask.  I didn’t even know the question.  I was adrift in a sea of suffering that I couldn’t identify, describe, or even begin to navigate.  I was drowning.  To borrow a line from the band Larkin Poe, “the river runs deep and the deep stays down”.  My deep stayed down.  Until it didn’t.  It was decades later when my first therapist named “trauma” as a significant factor in my recovery.  I remember being strangely defensive and hostile with her about that.  My parents had trauma.  Not me.  I couldn’t (at that point) acknowledge the magnitude of impact that my sister’s death had in my own life and development.   In my mind, my parents’ suffering was the only pain that mattered.  I couldn’t seem to make space for my own. I didn’t know how.  For many years, poetry was the only space where I let some of these feelings roam and find healthy expression.

My sister was a truly exceptional person and the impact of her loss is now woven into the very fabric of who we are.  I don’t believe you “get over” grief, but it is possible to move forward with it and learn how to carry it differently over time.  These poems were written over the course of many years.  I’m very happy to say I’m no longer in that dark place.  The collection itself is organized into three sections but certainly not meant to imply any kind of neat and tidy “completion” – I’m a work in progress, just like everyone else. 

So those are my personal reasons for writing and publishing this book.  That said, it is also my sincere hope that sharing these poems will play some small part in breaking down the stigma that folks with addictions and mental health issues continue to face.  I think we’ve come a long way when it comes to stigma, but we have a long way to go – particularly for those suffering from substance use disorder.  Stigma kills.  There’s simply no other way to say it.  Stigma is one of the biggest barriers to treatment and recovery for substance use disorders according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (and my own anecdotal experience, both personally and professionally).   We need to fight stigma.  It’s a matter of life and death for too many people.

Early intervention is key.  I believe it’s critically important to model this for our youth.  For everyone.   I’ve often wondered how much suffering could have been mitigated for me had I received mental health care as a youth who felt so lost and alone in what I was going through.  Unfortunately, that was not the culture of the time – in my family, community, or in society more generally.  The layers of unhelpful coping and defenses I developed over the years as a result of muddling through on my own made it that much more difficult than it needed to be to fully engage in healing.  That said, I can’t emphasize enough that it’s never too late.

Gabor Mate talks about trauma as the gateway to addiction.  I think that is the case for many.  He encourages bringing an attitude of “compassionate curiosity” to our experiences.  I love that.   I think that if we, as a society, bring more of this “compassionate curiosity” to complex struggles and problems that people face, we would have more helpful outcomes.  Addiction is a problem – we all clearly know this.  What many don’t appreciate or understand is that substance use issues and behavioral addictions were also attempts at “solutions” for many of us when healthy solutions were scarce or absent altogether.  

We need to change the narrative to reflect the truth – that it is smart, strong and brave to seek help when needed.  Not weakness. Attending to our mental health should be as routine and accepted as seeing our doctors, our dentists, our hairdressers.  There should be no shame attached.  No stigma.  Stigma has devastating impacts for individuals, families and communities. It keeps people isolated and alone when they need support and community the most.  We are all on a continuum of wellness and illness, many finding ourselves at different points on that spectrum throughout our lives.  To borrow the words of Greg Boyle, there is no “us” and “them”.  There is only “us”.  

Website: Go HERE.

A question before you go, Michelle:

Scribbler: What is the ideal spot for you when you write? Music in the background or quiet. Coffee or tequila? Messy or neat?

Michelle: My ideal spot for writing still lives in fantasyland at this point – my “someday” waterfront home, perhaps sitting on my covered porch (with intermittent breaks spent rocking in my porch swing), overlooking the gardens and lake/river/ocean, a generous cup of very strong coffee within easy reach.

For now, I generally squirrel myself away in my bedroom to write. While I typically need quiet and privacy to focus when I hunker down for writing, I’m often inspired when listening to music and compiling my multitudes of playlists and tend to generate a lot of thoughts, connections and ideas that way. Sometimes inspiration comes in the stillness, other times in the chaos. The writing itself is generally a very quiet and solitary thing for me. While I prefer a well-organized writing (and living) space, this is not always my reality. More often there are papers strewn all over my bed as I hunch over my laptop in postures that would likely make most physiotherapists and chiropractors collectively cringe.


3 poems from Tesserae

Thursday’s Child                                            

 

I still remember the costumes                           

you were eight, I was five 

A wee Lucifer, shoulder-hunched                               

and anvil heavy, watching you twirl

resplendent in a gown of golden satin

recycled from a wedding

  

Glittered, star-topped wand

like Glinda, the good witch 

My crimson cape (perfect for

dramatic entrances)

was custom-made  

I tried to feel grateful

resisting the urge to poke you

with my plywood pitchfork

hot tears behind my beastly

plastic mask

 

No more pictures now                       

and it’s taken me years to find

some sympathy

for this little devil 

to recognize that sometimes

it’s the monster

needing rescue

 not the princess

In Medias Res

 

You dropped my name and it broke

on the floor

 

trying to make sense

of this ragged, shattered scene

 

all the spaces in between with your

fingerprints wiped clean 

                 

 Sharp edges of my pain                              

warn, handle with care

thin skin

beware 

 I will not throw away

this tesserae 

I’ve never been one for waste

(though I like things

properly spaced)

                   

I’ve been long collecting

for this mosaic

pulling in, sifting out

 

 Still arranging

 no plans, as yet

to grout  

 

 

 Watermarks

 

There was a time I snail-carried sorrow

on my back

took all my travels

with that burden masquerading

as home

  

There were seasons I chased sorrow

down with drink

dissolving the throat lump of loss

with a hundred and one flavors

of oblivion

 

Sorrow once held me hostage

in the trunk of an old beater 

hogtied and ball-gagged

breathing through bullet holes

and trembling

with my heathen prayers

 

I made my scathed escape

shaking

off the Stockholm syndrome

 

easing my way back                                           

to the things I know

by heart

 

Thank you for sharing your poems and for being our guest this week, Michelle.

We wish you continued success with your writing.

And a HUGE thank you to our visitors and readers.

 Don’t be shy, leave a comment if you like.