Eastbourne poet offers lockdown collection

She is promising “30 inspirational and insightful poems dealing with loss, hope, love and compassion.”

Gabrielle explained: “My first poem came about when I was on a bike ride in March 2020. The world had just gone into lockdown, and everything felt frightening, dark, and foreboding. That morning was misty and damp until all of a sudden, the sun broke through, the air warmed and the clouds scattered. So came the inspiration for my first poem, And The Clouds Parted. It felt as though we all needed something to believe in and to know there was hope at the end of the darkness.”

As a former journalist, Gabrielle observed the world around her. Her poems include pieces about what she calls the invisible people: “Elderly women who are often unseen (Invisible), young men perceived as threatening (Buddy) and those struggling with depression in losing loved ones (Moving On).”

Her collaboration with Eastbourne artist Lucy Dean r esulted in a book filled with poignant images of watercolour and line drawings to accompany the poetry. “Lucy’s art was a perfect complement to my words,” said Gabrielle. “She has a wonderful insight and some of the images she created brought me to tears when I first saw them.”

And The Clouds Parted is Gabrielle’s first poetry book. Author of Whisper of the Lotus (published in 2020), she has also written children’s books, a travel and lifestyle book (Just Go! Leave the Treadmill for a World of Adventure) with her husband Skip and two non-fiction books about her life in Cambodia. Lucy Dean is an artist and teacher with a degree and background in theatre design who will be exhibiting her work this year at the Sussex Prairie Gardens. And The Clouds Parted is available on Amazon for £7.99.

Gabrielle added: “My writing career began as a journalist in South Africa where I wrote for The Star (the largest daily newspaper) before moving to the US to work in a New York public relations firm and freelance for South African newspapers.”