Author Guest Post with Lauren Martin: Night of the Hawk

Ifá. Nature. Illness. Love. Loss. Misogyny. Aging. Africa. Our wounded planet. In

Welcome to the January 29th stop on the blog tour for Night of the Hawk by Lauren Martin with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

I am not sure why I write poetry other than to say that it seemed to come naturally to me even before I knew what it was. I moved from Boston to SF in sixth grade because my father had grown up here. I felt so different from everyone and was plagued with anxiety. I mostly tried to be invisible but somehow, was pulled out of a writing class and told my writing was poetic. I remember standing in the hall outside my classroom convinced I was in trouble for something and relieved to hear I wasn’t. When they suggested I join their poetry writing class, I agreed before I knew what it would entail. And I loved it.

Poetry has always been with me and come to me without effort I think because I am a medium. I dream my poems and wake up with them fully formed, requiring minimal edits. In that context, I imagine they are communications from the spirit realm and they are messages from those crossed over souls and I’m merely the vessel. But maybe we are all vessels for whatever unique skills we have and what the divine wants from us. I love poetry. I love that a good poem makes you feel deeply even if it is communicating an experience that is unlike your own. I love that people can access its’ emotion and interpret the work their own way (as it speaks to them despite the memoirist style it holds). I’m fascinated by the way that broken words and lines can create a metaphor and communicate a rich and alive world. I mostly love that poetry inspires kindness. 

About the Book

Night of the Hawk
by Lauren Martin

Published 14 May 2024
She Writes Press

Genre: Poetry
Page Count: 88
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Ifá. Nature. Illness. Love. Loss. Misogyny. Aging. Africa. Our wounded planet. In this sweeping yet intensely personal collection, Lauren Martin tells the untold stories of the marginalized, the abused, the ill, the disabled—the different. Inspired by her life’s experiences, including the isolation she has suffered as a result both of living with chronic illness and having devoted herself to a religion outside the mainstream, these poems explore with raw vulnerability and unflinching honesty what it is to live apart—even as one yearns for connection.

But Night of the Hawk is no lament; it is powerful, reverential, sometimes humorous, often defiant—“Oh heat me and fill me / I rise above lines”—and full of wisdom. Visceral and stirring, the poems in this collection touch on vastly disparate subjects but are ultimately unified in a singular quest: to inspire those who read them toward kindness, compassion, and questioning.

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Excerpt

PEACHES

Dear Peaches,
Please stop killing yourself with shameful behavior.
I saw the ass drums.
I wanted to barf. I thought much more highly of you.
You are the slimy lecherous guy on stage at spring break.
Except, you’re 60. I guess that makes sense.
But What is going on? And you question my rituals?

Love,
Muñequita

About the Author

Lauren Martin is a psychotherapist, poet, and a devoted Ìyânífá. Born in Boston and spending many years in New York and Paris, she currently lives in Oakland, California. Lauren studied psychology, photography and poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. She spent years writing without submitting her work due to a long shamanic journey, which led her to both Ifá, and to the writing of several books (including this collection of poems.) The upcoming publication of Night of the Hawk (SheWrites Press, 2024), reflects a deeply personal experience of illness, isolation and true shamanism.

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Giveaway Alert!

Lauren Martin will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

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