Poetry & Music
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Praise for
Give Me a Fragment: Glimpses into Motherhood, Depression, and Hope
Jane Clayson Johnson
award-winning journalist with The Early Show on CBS, public speaker, and best-selling author of 'I Am a Mother' and 'Silent Souls Weeping'
“A beautful little book... I was very touched and recognized the feelings so brilliantly conveyed."
Heidi Ashworth
award-winning and best-selling author of the Miss Delacourt and The Lord Trevelin Mystery series
"This is a short but powerful read. There is everything here that one looks for in poetry, including a variety of styles and cadences. The author’s reflections on mental illness, motherhood, and marriage are achingly accurate, as well. As a married mother in a house full of mood disorders, every word resonated with me. At the same time, these are words that are relatable to any and all of us, regardless of our circumstances. There is a longing expressed in these words, one that we all feel; the longing to know, without doubt, that we are worthy. This is a treasure you will read again and again.."
Dr. Alyssa Morris
award-winning musician, composer, and professor of music at Kansas State University
“This is a beautiful, thoughtful, inspired collection of poetry. I will be reading and re-reading these!”
Chalese Stevens
author, entrepreneur, and founder of The Rainy Days Foundation
“Cheryl does an incredible job capturing the depth and emotions of a mother. No matter what your circumstance is, every mother can relate to the emotions in between the pages of this book. There is pain, there is joy and there is complete vulnerability in the words of her beautiful poetry. It is a must read, for sure!”
Praise for
Carve a Place for Me
Melissa
Dalton-Bradford
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co-founder of Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG), the non-profit Their Story is Our Story; poet, essayist, refugee language teaching volunteer, international speaker, and award-winning author of 'Global Mom: A Memoir' and 'On Loss and Living Onward'
If the work of poetry is to elevate both ideas and audience through the weight of words, Cheryl Seely Savage's labor is a sound success. In this irresistible collection, she achieves that delicate balance between uplift and density, surprising and challenging her reader at one turn with shimmering humor, and at the next, with leaden despair. She moves artfully and honestly through a woman's landscape, from the "youthful buds" and "giddy, bubbling joy" to the "burning hoops" and "belching fire and death" (a different dragon mom!), of motherhood. She spares little, and in doing so offers so beautifully, bitingly much.
Dr. Aimee Fox
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Professor and published researcher of human development and family science at Utah Valley University
Carve a Place for Me offers raw and touching glimpses into the joy, pain, messiness, mundane, and beauty of life. If you are feeling untethered in parenthood or relationships, or you are seeking connection and understanding, this collection is a gift you will return to time and time again!’
Sarah Kiiru
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elementary school librarian assistant, former secondary education English teacher, poet, founder/editor of Red Pencil Editing, and founder/director of POETICS
Cheryl Seely Savage loves words and readers leave each poem loving them too. A close and reverent observer of the natural world and a chronicler of personal yet universal experiences, she urges the reader to take notice of happenings both inside and outside oneself. Full of the ordinary stuff of life — blueberry pie, a winter-rimmed tree, reading and re-reading Jane Austen — Cheryl’s poems are at their heart deeply human and profoundly spiritual, and invite the reader to be the same.
Jess Grippo
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dancer, performer, creativity coach, public speaker, poet, founder of You Can Dance Again and The Dance Rebel Leadership Training, and author of 'Dance with This Book'
Cheryl’s poems in Carve a Place for Me feels like she truly has carved a place for all of us –-to connect to the simplicity of the present moment, whether it’s the feeling of rain or the memory of young love. Reading her words is refreshing, a moment to cherish.
Rachel Hunt Steenblik
professor of Philosophy, founder of the #TinyKindess movement, co-author of Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings, and award-winning poet of 'Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother' and 'I Gave Her a Name'
Carve a Place for Me is beautiful and delightful! There were poems about nature, Jane Austen, longing, and motherhood that alternately made me smile, feel the weight, and yearn, too. Several of these, as well as later poems on depression, included piercingly poignant lines that would sneak up on me, and impress themselves upon my heart and mind in such a way that I know I’ll be thinking about them for a long time. Overall, many of Savage’s poems resonated with me, and gave me the cherished, “I’m not alone” feeling. Others, while further removed from my personal experience still filled me with gratitude to have read and gave me a deeper understanding of what it can mean to be human. I also loved her mix of forms between her poems: from rhyming and schemed to more open. A joy to read!”
Praise for
We Have Time
Rachel Rueckert
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teacher, editor, keynote speaker, current editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Exponent II, pushcart prize nominee, and award winning author of the memoir "East Winds"
We Have Time...is ripe with love. She wrote this in commemoration of her 24th wedding anniversary, and though it is unabashedly romantic, it also dips into childhood crushes on a teacher, past relationships, difficult marriage moments, and the role of memory and presence throughout it all. There were so many moving moments, but “Real Love Story (Haiku)," dedicated to her grandparents and their 70-year marriage, caught me in the gut. “When they passed away, Only nine short months apart / It matched their story / No need for fanfare / Only the longing to be / Together again.” I also enjoyed the moments when the speaker celebrated love for herself, such as in “Love Notes to Me.” It was lovely to see quiet and everyday love captured in this way. Because “some of our / Stories have happy endings (it’s allowed).”
Mia Welch​
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poet, songwriter, musician, mother, refugee advocate,
and nonprofit worker for Catholic Charities
and HELP International
Cheryl’s poetry opened up a window in my heart to explore and relive my own love story—and not just the one with my beloved husband. Cheryl has a gift for honoring every love experience—from a crush on a teacher to the devotion of a spouse and everything in between. She gives the reader permission to connect the dots between their own experiences of rejection, romance, disappointment, and loyalty to create one seamless love story instead of segmenting the human experience of love. I’ll be turning to these poems again and again when I’m yearning to find the words for my own lived experience, or needing to find empathy for the ones I do not yet understand.
Jared Morris
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professional percussionist, high school band director, ensemble conductor, author, speaker, and teacher
I loved Cheryl (Seely) Savage’s previous books, and found this one to be just as beautiful. We Have Time differs from the others in that it explores a central theme of love. I made my own amateur attempt at writing love poetry when I proposed to my wife! But Cheryl (Seely) Savage’s writing has an eloquence and depth that I only wish I found in my own. I keep her three poetry collections on a shelf next to the comfy chair in my sitting room so I can pick it up often to read a few pages. I find her reflections to be timely and timeless, and I recommend her work to all who love this art form!