One thing I’ve learned from talking with poets about their writing process is that poems usually do not spring onto the page fully formed like Venus does when she emerges from the sea standing atop her scallop shell as is depicted in Sandro Botticelli’s famous painting The Birth of Venus. Rather, most poems go through a long gestation period, and such is certainly the case with the poems in Brooke Lehmann’s debut collection titled Of Salt and Song.
I first found out about Brooke’s collection from Kathie Collins from Charlotte Lit. In an email that Kathie sent to me last week, she wrote, “Brooke Lehmann has just published her first collection of poems, Of Salt and Song, with Kelsay Books. Brooke was Charlotte Lit’s programming director for almost two years and is a graduate of our first Poetry Chapbook Lab, where she worked on many of the poems in the collection. We’re so proud of Brooke.” Following up on Kathie’s tip, I contacted Brooke and asked her about how she came to write Of Salt and Song. Her is what she sent to me:
Of Salt and Song, my debut poetry collection, offers a powerful and intimate journey of survival through the landscape of my harmful religious upbringing. This collection began its journey within the Charlotte Lit Poetry Chapbook Lab, an initiative founded by Kathie Collins, where the initial poems were shaped through the guidance of poets Dannye Romine Powell and Jessica Jacobs. I continued to develop the poems into a full-length collection.
Framed through the lens of the biblical story of Lot’s wife, my collection employs persona poems to reimagine this familiar narrative, subverting traditional patriarchal themes of disobedience and divine punishment. The speaker’s experience of a punitive father-God finds a stark parallel in her relationship with an abusive earthly father, creating a resonant exploration of authority, control, and the lasting impact of fear. I also connected with poet Chen Chen through Charlotte Lit’s Poetry Nightclub, whose generous review of my collection further affirmed the connections in the power of writing in community.
Readers in the Charlotte area are invited to celebrate the release of Of Salt and Song at Goodyear Arts on Wednesday, June 11th at 7 p.m. I will be hosted by local poet Dr. de’Angelo Dia, and the evening will include a reading followed by a Q&A session. For those interested in themes of trauma, resilience, and the reclaiming of one’s narrative in the face of adversity, these poems offer a message of hope and redemption.
For more information about Brooke, please click on the following link: https://www.brookelehmann.com
I congratulate Brooke on the publication of her debut poetry collection, and I thank Kathie Collins for bringing Brooke’s Of Salt and Song to my attention. As Brooke makes clear in the writeup that she sent to me, Storied Charlotte is very much a community of writers who support each other and celebrate each other’s successes.
