Waiting for Scotland

Endorsements

“This book is a rare treasure! The poems radiate powerful light that comes from the author’s great heart, authentic wisdom, and beautiful way with words. Rich with courage, honesty, and grace, these poems will surely light your life.”

—T. A. Barron, author of The Merlin Saga

“S.A. Borders-Shoemaker’s poems and meditations in Waiting for Scotland are whispers of wisdom and insight gathered like leaves on a tree to give wandering souls a blessing of shade in the fury and heat of our day. Waiting for Scotland has three branches––‘Packing Bags,’ ‘Bravehearted Plans,’ and ‘Different Hopes’––that give different perspectives to a wanderer’s journey. Each branch filled with wisdom and insight, Waiting for Scotland is a journey waiting to be taken.”

—W. Michael Farmer, PhD

“These beautifully written, intimate poems, spoken from a heart scored with sorrow, breathe with urgency. S.A. Borders-Shoemaker writes of the fragility of life, of being at war with herself for caring about someone who cares little for her.

“Written with this author’s characteristic wisdom and hopefulness, Borders-Shoemaker writes, too, of finding good, a true love, and the freedom to be herself with a fearless voice known only to her generation.

“Readers will journey with her as she strives to exist in sadness, trying to survive the moment while feeling nothing. S.A. Borders-Shoemaker tells us ‘Our wounds do not define us.’

Waiting for Scotland holds true to that promise and gives us so very much more.”

—Ann Falcone Shalaski, author of World Made of Glass, Without Pretense, and Just So You Know

“Her poems are gritty, earthy and yet belong to the stars that hold our dreams. In Waiting for Scotland, S.A. Borders-Shoemaker’s honesty and insight are breathtaking. Great poets meet you at the crossroads of your deepest thoughts, at the places where you feel the pluck of each nerve, where hope and uncertainty trade. S.A. Borders-Shoemaker will speak to places you didn’t know you had, evoke emotion you didn’t believe possible. She doesn’t just write poetry—as far as I can tell, she is poetry.”

—Jeffrey Blount, author of The Emancipation of the Walls

“S.A. Borders-Shoemaker calls her Waiting for Scotland ‘Poems and Meditations.’ Written with intensity, these compact works comprise a woman’s rite of passage from a history of fear and abuse—the poet doesn’t tell us what kind of abuse, but there are hints that it was both physical and verbal—to a fully realized adult capable of freeing herself from the traumas of her past and finding inner strength to risk vulnerability, thereby opening herself to accepting and giving love. But first she must confront and speak her truth, which she finds painful and terrifying. ‘Pain is a place / where truth / has trouble speaking. / And I / have often been silent.’ 

“Part I, which the poet calls ‘Packing Bags,’ is turned upside down into the narrator’s unpacking her psychological bags. Scotland functions not only as the geographical place that the narrator is waiting to visit, but also as a metaphor for her therapeutic journey into herself. And she is not going to wait for this inner trip to happen. The entire collection of writings in this volume depicts a proactive narrator working her way through her past and present, laying preparation for a more hopeful future. There are many memorable, sometimes powerful lines as the narrator struggles to speak her truth. 

“In Part II, ‘Bravehearted Plans,’ the poet proclaims, ‘Everything is a poem / if you allow it / to speak.’ Borders-Shoemaker angrily decries the humiliating dilemma so many women experience in a patriarchal culture where women are defined—and thereby subjugated—by men. ‘Don’t wait for / someone / to proclaim your worth / It’s already yours.’ Titles of some of the short poems function as road signs along this biographical journey: ‘control and love aren’t the same thing;’ ‘it takes guts to be who you are;’ ‘there is no love without liberty.’

“In Part III, ‘Different Hopes,’ the poem’s narrator achieves her longing for fulfillment at all the complex multilevel aspects of her human nature—intellectual, sexual, emotional, creative. The metaphor of the journey to Scotland is fully immersed in the narrator’s journey into herself.”

—Mary Batten, author of Life in Hot Water: Wildlife at the Bottom of the Ocean