Angela Bowden and Claire Yurkovich (standing)
The process of writing poetry may have healing benefits for trauma, especially when the writing happens in a communal setting. That’s what student Claire Yurkovich is hoping to find out through her graduate research at Saint Mary’s University.
“There is something so special about creating in a shared space, and this became very central to my research in poetic healing,” says Yurkovich, who is in the final stretch of her Master of Arts degree program in Women and Gender Studies (WGST).
In February, she facilitated a series of four 90-minute community workshops to explore poetry’s therapeutic benefits as a tool for processing trauma related to sexual violence. Some participants had no prior experience writing poetry, so the first session introduced poetic vocabulary, forms and other writing devices. The next two sessions focused on writing, with a variety of prompts. In the final session, the budding poets shared their creations with the group.
“Writing poetry allows for a processing of your own emotions around difficult topics, but it also creates the potential for other individuals to read and resonate with your words, and space for shared experiences to emerge,” she says.
Poetry is also a central element of Angela Bowden’s graduate work in Women and Gender Studies here at Saint Mary’s. Born and raised in New Glasgow, she is an accomplished author, speaker and activist whose writing draws upon her lived experiences as an African Nova Scotian woman and mother of three sons. She aims to ignite conversations around social justice, systemic racism’s perseverance, and the connections between historical trauma and current inequalities, while also honouring ancestors and inspiring young people.
Bowden’s first poetry collection, Unspoken Truth – Unmuted and Unfiltered, was published in 2021 by Pottersfield Press, and she’s now working on a children’s book for Black girls. She was recently celebrated in a feature story on the website Amplify East, which aims to “change the voice of Atlantic Canada one woman at a time.”
“Poetry, much like music, provides a platform for difficult topics to be expressed and received without direct argument or confrontation,” says Bowden. “Poetry is able to take us beyond the cerebral understanding and into a place I like to refer to as ‘innerstanding’; a place where you are touched so profoundly that you are motivated to change. It can result when poetry moves through difficult topics unapologetically in a truth telling that forces a reconciliation and calls for change on behalf of the recipient.”
While writing UnSpoken Truth, she realized that many of her poems were grounded in women and gender issues. Her son was attending Saint Mary’s, and Bowden ended up meeting with Dr. Michele Byers to learn more about the WGST graduate program.
“I learned that it is critical to the understanding, ‘innerstanding’ and healing of Black women and our society to be a part of the larger conversations that are taking place in academia about us and around us; intersectionality and various feminist theories not only apply to us but are us. I am learning, teaching and sharing knowledge,” she says.
Mavis Mainu
Mavis Mainu of Ghana was living in Germany when her best friend recommended Saint Mary’s for graduate studies. With her interdisciplinary interests in climate change, migration and gender issues, she felt the WGST program was the perfect fit for her research, and would build on her first master’s degree in Development Studies and Governance from the University of Duisburg-Essen. She lives in Berlin, so the main challenge was juggling a busy work schedule with Halifax classes that sometimes went past midnight with the time zone differences.
Mainu works at Climate Analytics, a non-profit climate science and policy institute where her current role is administrative and operational in nature. Her goal is to shift into a content role that focuses gender and adaptation, climate research and analysis, so she can contribute to the much-needed academic literature in the intersection of these issues.
“Before I undertook this degree, I was working on a lot of projects for women and girls but did not have the academic background to complement the practical skills or experience,” says Mainu. “This program is empowering and preparing me to work in areas that I am passionate about.”
Mainu is a co-founder of the Oak Foundation, an NGO that nurtures young women in education and entrepreneurship in Ghana, and is also a Climate Reality Leader, a Queens Young Leader, Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society, and a One Young World Ambassador.
Learn more about the Graduate Program in Women and Gender Studies at Saint Mary’s, and the undergraduate Minor in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.