Ritual Abuse Survivors Read Their Poems of Suffering and Healing

It’s happening! I’m excited and hope it is the first of many similar events.

Back in the days when there were a great many survivors in the Bay Area interested in 12 step meetings, Survivorship conferences, and other ways of meeting survivors, we held poetry readings at bookstores. They were well attended and both fun and inspiring. Now there are few independent bookstores and it would be much harder to get enough people to attend.

So we turned to the Internet. This the first U.S. reading of RA poems since the turn of the century, as far as I know, and surely the first virtual one! I would love to be wrong, of course. If there have been others, I hope you will tell us about them in the comment section. And let us know if more are being planned.

We have asked six poets from varying backgrounds to read some of their work during the first hour. The second hour will be open to everybody attending to ask questions and share comments. If the reading is enthusiastically received, we will schedule another.

We want you to know ahead of time that we will give a general trigger warning at the beginning of the program, along with suggestions for self-care. Individual poems will not have trigger warnings. Not all of the poetry is heavy.

Sign-up is through Eventbrite and the reading itself will take place on ZOOM.

Here is the link to the Eventbrite announcement and sign-up for “Ritual Abuse Survivors Read Their Poems of Suffering and Healing.”   
https://ra-mindcontrolpoetry.eventbrite.com.au. 

If you don’t have ZOOM on your computer, laptop, or phone, download it now and play with it to familiarize yourself with the basics. It’s pretty easy. https://www.wizcase.com/download/zoom/

The reading is taking place on Saturday, July 10. I am hosting it and Leni is the Chair and technical organizer. If you would like to get to know Leni, her blog is at https://ourdissociativelives.wordpress.com. One of the poets, Daniel, has volunteered to help with the chat.

Here are some popular time zones:

Saturday, July 10, 4-6 pm Pacific Time 
Saturday, July 10, 5-7 Mountain Time 
Saturday, July 10, 6-8 Central Time 
Saturday, July 10, 7-9 pm East Coast Time
Sunday, July 11, 9 -11 am Melbourne AEST (Leni lives in Australia and is always a day ahead of the US, Canada, and Europe!) 

Also, I am putting together a mailing list called “RA MC Events and Information.” Everybody who signed up through Eventbrite will be added automatically. If you want to be on the list, but can’t attend the reading, just drop me a line at rahome@ra-info.org or in the comments section after this post, and I will add you.

Please share this information with anybody you feel might be interested. 

We hope many of you attend with all your friends!!!

Jean and Leni