Throughout life, we all have experiences we learn from. Soul Language is a collection of Stephanie Garner’s experiences expressed through poetry. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, she’s had an interesting array of utter happiness, desperate losses, life-changing fears, abusive relationships, amazing friendships, absolute depression, and love beyond believing. Garner knows she’s not alone in these experiences, but the emotions that flow out of her when she’s writing become their own entities, putting into words the confusion, loss, and joy she feels.

In many of the poems Garner has written and shared here, she is truly vulnerable. They represent wounds that struggled to heal and hardships she wasn’t sure she would make it through. At times, she felt desperately alone, so if through her poetry, others find solace or a connection that helps them through a difficult time, then every wound has been worth it and the joy of living can be shared.

About the Author

Stephanie Garner lives at the base of the Columbia Hills with her husband, son, daughter, two dogs, a million cats, six chickens, two horses, and one hundred cows on a ranch just outside a little community called Centerville in Washington State. Her husband’s family homesteaded the ranch in 1870 after trekking across the country on the Oregon Trail. Her oldest daughter and her husband currently live in Hawaii but are soon, ironically enough, moving across the ocean to Alaska. Garner has been a teacher for twenty-eight years; fourteen of those years as an English teacher, and the rest in a variety of other grades, her favorite being fifth grade.

Garner loves to grow things in her garden and greet the pollinators as they visit her bounty. She’s recently expanded her green thumb to include a full pumpkin patch that a co-teacher and her host in the fall. She loves watching the children lug their pumpkins out of the field with joy clearly sketched on their faces. As a teacher, she doesn’t always get to see the happy, carefree spirits of children or the positive interactions of them with their families. It really reminds her that life is special and not to take any moment for granted.