#213 Healing through Poetry w/ Army Veteran Erika Land, War Poet

The first poem Army Veteran Erika Land composed was meant to be her farewell gift to the world before she committed suicide. Now she travels around the country to share the art which motivated her to keep on living.

This week's Borne the Battle features Army Veteran Erika Land, who shares the story of how she changed her suicide letter into “War Song.”
Before 9/11, Erika joined the Army as a pharmacy technician. Her job was to dispense medications in the emergency department. At work, she experienced pain, sorrow, anger, anxiety, depression and helplessness. After leaving service, she believed the only way out from feeling those emotions was to take her life – until she found poetry.

VA’s Art Therapy Program allowed Land to express herself. She wrote about the trials and tribulations she experienced while being deployed to Iraq. But in Poetry, Land felt she could speak from the soul, to express to others on the same path that they, too, could find healing. "Poetry is the window into the soul and a reflection of life," she says, in the podcast.

After service is when Land realized she wasn't alone. As she found poetry, she found passion for life and began touring and making arrangements for theaters and venues to market her shows. On Borne the Battle, she talks about how her performances not only allowed her to heal, but how it enabled her to connect with others to answer the deep questions she never asked herself.

PTSD Hotline Phone Number855-698-4677

National Suicide Prevention Hotline Phone Number1-800-273-8255

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