Rose and Iris by Pam Noble

 

Pam Noble is a powerful storyteller.  Grief and solace, memory and mystery – she has woven them all into a rich fabric we gratefully wrap ourselves in.  Her gift is her beautiful language set against a stark human landscape.  We are drawn into the urgency and glory of these two women’s lives – women we will remember long after we turn the last page of this collection.

–Judy Goldman, author of Together:  A Memoir of a Marriage and a Medical Mishap

 

Rose and Iris is a heart-wrenching story of redemptive love told in searing poetic language. Pam Noble paints a world with words — a world that we enter as one person and leave as another — transformed by a love that crosses all boundaries to meet and heal the depths of anguish. In the end, we soar.

–Tami Simon, Founder and Publisher, Sounds True

 

The imagery resonates among Pam Noble’s poems, culminating in a tapestry of light and color in the darkness. The poems ask, how does art illuminate and mitigate profound suffering? As they open us to the pain of experience and the breath of healing, the poems do what only art can do. The over-riding experience of resilience and healing is as much a tribute to the craft of the poems as to the narrative.

–Carol Guerrero-Murphy, poet, author of Chained Dog Dreams

 

As a survivor of childhood abuse, I was awed by Pam Noble’s capacity to render violence and tenderness with honesty and intimacy in equal measure. Rose and Iris have remained in my heart as symbols of rebirth and forgiveness, even in the face of abject horror.

–Julie M. Kramer, Shamanic Practitioner and Facilitator

 

Rose and Iris evokes visceral emotions with images of nature pulling the reader into a troubling story. One cannot stop reading. Pam’s poems conjure the embodiment of Leonard Cohen’s verse, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

–Angela Williams, author of Hush Now, Baby

 

The visual poetry of Rose & Iris is mesmerizing. It is a story that draws the reader – or listener – into the inner worlds of these two women. And, through them, into a deeper understanding of the complicated journey through abuse toward healing.

–Anne Tapp, Executive Director of SPAN (Safe House Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence)