This is the second book of poetry by E. Lynn Alexander, from Collapse Press. In Find Me in the Iris, she continues to explore the themes of The Shouldspeak Disease on the language of shame and internalized expectations, conditioning, regulating norms and binaries as effacing and modern measurements that are increasingly toxic to both individual and nature. The destructive relationships between reduction and disrespect vs honoring and co-validity have modern consequences. Increasingly disconnected from a silenced but ancient maternal psyche, the modern contrasts of hierarchy and individualism pull us away from our roots and exploring the natural, mystical, and spiritual can be restorative acts of reclaiming. "Mother" in this case is origin, generational and collective, where a consciousness of legacies tapped affirms the past and honors the future.

The state of the world is in front of us.

Why are we destroying everything at such an alarming rate, turning the corner on so much that is irreversible? Our path is one that rewards extremes: self centered, immediate and empty gratification, consumption, competition, exhibitionism, self interest. To commune and cooperate is to be "weak", to share knowledge is to lose "advantage". Where shame is the tool, coerced participation is the result. The desire to diminish and destroy pushes us to channel our energies defensively and we are depleted. We feel hopeless and powerless because we are surrounded by that message. But it was not the message of our mothers.

"In the eye, I am alive, I send the hue, for you to find me. Everything, mother moon, to the tides. The ocean pools to the pupil, as to a black hole. Find me in the iris, in the blue, in the storm's eye, in the silence."