Awakening
by Mary Saracino
November 2026
Original trade paperback ISBN 9781597191074 | 98 pp | $16.95
Ebook ISBN 9781597191081 | $6.99
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A collection of poems about healing from trauma, Awakening takes readers on a journey of loss, resilience, redemption, and, ultimately, reclamation. The poems speak to the need to embrace the healing journey, seek solace in the power of nature, and accept the love and support of others along the way. Ultimately they celebrate the triumph of coming home to oneself in order to be fully present to joy and all that life has to offer.
About the author | Library information form (PDF)
Also by Mary Saracino
Motherlines | Heretics: A Love Story | The Singing of Swans
PRAISE for Awakening
“Mary Saracino’s latest and perhaps bravest book of poetry, Awakening,
begins with the life-changing event that traumatized her at age 13,
when she is literally split and torn away from all she knew
by her mother’s decision to leave her husband and sons behind
and take only her daughters to join her lover across country.
This event defines her life; the ordeal is recorded in her cells.
Mary’s poems teach us nothing is lost or really buried.
Saracino writes eloquently of all the trauma her body remembered
as she struggled for survival. Like Sylvia Path in Ariel, we are spared nothing.
Each word and image echoes, punctuates and questions her pain.
“The little Italian girl with brown eyes” that tried to hide her immense suffering now,
as poet, has found the words to speak. We are not left there, however.
In Part 2 she teaches how nature heals her and trees guide.
In Part 3 of Awakening we understand how agony forged a new and true self
with the help of her allies and her wife. “I chose me this time.”
Mary Saracino’s Awakening is a powerful book of revelation, healing
and redemption for our time.”
Louisa Calio
internationally award-winning poet and writer
“Mary Saracino’s poetry echoes what I believe almost every survivor has felt at one point or another: ‘Where do vowels go when I cannot speak?’ In a world that closes its eyes to rampant sexual abuse, Awakening is a book that makes you finally feel seen. This powerful collection is potent healing: a reclamation of our whole and holy bodies, minds and souls.”
Trista Hendren
The Girl God Books
“In her new, compelling poetry collection, Awakening, Mary Saracino tells of her deep childhood traumas, including sexual abuse. In poignant and lyrical language, Saracino’s poems reveal how she was able to overcome and heal by learning the lessons Nature teaches and by awakening through love to a beautiful and vast universe, where one can thrive in wisdom and joy.”
Maria Famà
poet & winner of Second Prize in the 2018 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards
Her latest book is Trigger (Bordighera Press, 2024)
“Mary Saracino’s exquisite writing in Awakening demonstrates how poetry educates us about trauma. As both a neuroscientist and a poet, I can testify to the power of this somatic writing to elucidate the artistry of the human nervous system that must, ultimately, articulate its truth.”
Stephanie Mines, PhD
Author of The Secret of Resilience and The Great Physician
Founder of the TARA Approach for the Resolution of Shock and Trauma