A Plea to Our Mother

A Plea to Our Mother is a beautiful, complex, difficult collection of autobiographical poems that chronicles one woman’s experience of childhood sexual abuse, and how the abuse suffered by other members of her family led to and complicated her own experiences.

Deeply personal and incredibly moving, the collection speaks to any reader who has experienced sexual assault or trauma, as well as those who want to better understand cycles of trauma and violence. At the end of the book, poems of resilience help uplift the reader after an emotional journey.

Breaking the silence is always difficult, but opening the conversation is the only way to bring understanding to the long-lasting effects of sexual violence and the common misunderstandings about people who suffer sexual violence as children. Poet Kathleen Rooney originally tackled this heart-wrenching content to break her own silence and with hope for validation from her family. When that didn’t happen, she wrote the ending of the story of “Now what?” so that others in the same predicament would feel less alone.