When KaDawna Gasson emerged from a coma after months of hovering between life and death, she returned to writing. “It was my first form of communication, the first way I could talk to the world again.” What had begun as a cold or flu quickly escalated into Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and sepsis, life-threatening to both KaDawna and her unborn child. Her recuperation was long and painful, and she believes that expressing herself with words helped her maintain strength and continue healing. Her book The Void Between aided in her comprehension of her trauma. “Change and healing are not easy, clean, or linear. Writing was a way to process these difficult experiences and memories, breaking them apart and exploring them in the safe space of my words on paper.”
While her book alternates between poetry and prose, KaDawna finds that poetry is often her entry point to deeper subjects. “I started my book by just writing a poem that detailed the rough outline of everything that happened during those trying months. Then I took the poem and started to write on things that I could talk about, and slowly came around to the harder topics of that experience.”
KaDawna has a long history of writing, starting in childhood. She is neurodivergent, which is associated with very young language decoding. “Writing was my safety and my escape.” In high school, she was introduced to contemporary poetry and loved the “idea that I could take anything and make it a poem.” She has continued to write throughout her life. “I write like I breathe; it’s a way of life. I can write anywhere, any time. If I can find paper, or at least a pen, I can write.”
KaDawna enjoys challenging herself through poetry. “I like writing in different states of mind and in different places. You can capture things that you might not if you had only one special place or one feeling or one time of day that you write.” Her topics are varied. “I love writing about motherhood and watching my children grow, especially now that they are not tiny and cute. I write about end of life, depression, boredom, heartbreak and healing, things that can cause raw emotions.”
Poems often start as journal entries. “Things I can’t seem to get out of my head get processed that way.” Her themes evolve along with her life. “What’s going on in my life is processed through paper, so everything is constantly shifting. My writing ages and changes with me. You are either changing or dying.” She finds that poetry has the ability to communicate in an original way. “Poetry makes the simple beautiful and complex. It also makes the complex simple and easy to understand.”
KaDawna lives in Prescott and works as a dog groomer. She has always been drawn to animals, having had a goat farm in Colorado before relocating to this area, which was part of her continued healing. “I was handed a clean slate, and wanted to make a new life with it.” She participates in local open mics and appreciates hearing the poetry of others. “I learn so much. Different styles and techniques, different points of view, what makes them happy, scared, things they are going through, and worried about, and how they process it.” She is currently working on book of short stories and poems titled Neuro Diverge Agent.
In discussing the poem “The Doe and the Car,” KaDawna says that she was inspired by an accident where she and a partner hit a deer. This led to realizations of how differently they handled the event and how different they were from each other. “Invisible” employs repeated lines, emphasizing the struggle to communicate. “It reminded me of being in a coma, and how I was still there, still fighting, still very aware, and feeling like no one could see my consciousness. The hardest fight I had was at no more than a whisper, and done alone.”
Ultimately, poetry is a means by which KaDawna can share her unique take on life with others. “I have lived a very interesting life, and I have a different viewpoint than others by being a neurodivergent. Poetry is my creative outlet, and my dusty fingerprint on this earth.”
To contact KaDawna: 200fngoats@gmail.com
My fingers cling to glass like rain in limbo.
I am the silence.
You don’t know I’m there until you listen.
Stuck between echoes.
I am the silence.
Crawling up and through the cracks.
Stuck between echoes.
The creatures stir.
I am crawling up and through the cracks.
I can see reality unravel.
The creature is stirring,
juxtaposed truth and lies.
I can see reality unravel.
Tediously rising from the dead,
juxtaposed truth and lies,
is the breath I thought I had lost.
I am tediously rising from the dead.
Feeling cinches my fingertips.
The breath I thought I had lost
takes hold as I grasp onto anything that will hold me.
The car: a cold moving
Machine powering the world
Mindlessly pulling forward.
The Doe: free from the
restraints of the world
Aimlessly wandering in the
beauty of the Earth.
I see you as you see me.
Our kiss is the collision.
Steel and heart,
Fur and glass,
Bone and speed.
Dee Cohen is a Prescott poet and photographer. deecohen@cox.net.
