Regrowth: Reaching for the Poetic Sky is a luminous and courageous collection that charts one poet's evolving journey through life-beginning in childhood wonder, traversing the trauma of adolescence, pausing in the ambiguities of adulthood, and arriving at a hard-won maturity tempered with wisdom.
Structured in five parts-Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood, Maturity, and Wisdom-the collection becomes not only a poetic autobiography, but also a deeply human map of resilience and reflection. Each stage peels back layers of lived experience: formative memories, haunting betrayals, moments of epiphany, and flashes of beauty found even in life's harshest corners.
In the searing poem "Inmate Number 429," the poet recounts time spent in a notorious boys' home in Brisbane, where systemic abuse left scars both physical and spiritual. With stark, lyrical candor, he invites the reader into a harrowing world of cruelty and survival, asking, "Does my crime fit the punishment? And who has become my judge, jury, and executor?" In "Death of a Fruit Bat," a delicate creature becomes the symbol of innocence destroyed, echoing the wider theme of nature's exploitation and the moral numbness of modern man.
As the poet enters adulthood, moments of homelessness and inner dislocation surface, explored with dignity and unflinching honesty in "Homeless"-a raw portrait of vulnerability on the margins. In contrast, "Woman at the Foot of a Bed" is a sensual, painterly tribute to intimacy and memory, where love lingers like perfume in the soft light. Here, eroticism is treated not as titillation, but as sacred memory-sensuality rendered in poetic brushstrokes.
In Maturity and Wisdom, the tone broadens and deepens. "Place in Time" recounts a solo bicycle journey around Australia, its sparse beauty evoking both awe and humility: "I'm passing through. I can only move through this place. I would never survive here-I can only experience it." The theme of transience culminates in the two-part poem "Transient," where a chance meeting between two damaged men leads to shared healing. This modern rime, reminiscent of Coleridge, traces the invisible threads of trauma, compassion, and redemption-one soul helping another find wholeness.
Throughout the book, the poet's craft is evident not only in his imagery and rhythm, but in his emotional precision. Whether recalling the quiet violence of neglect, the ache of a lost child, or the subtle revelations of aging, each poem insists on truth-even when that truth is difficult. Regrowth does not seek pity, nor does it settle for bitterness. Instead, it embodies the act of reaching upward-like a shoot through hardened soil-toward meaning, purpose, and poetic sky.
This is not merely a collection of poems, but a deeply personal offering: a poetic memoir spanning decades, stitched together with scars, grace, longing, and survival. It will speak to readers who know the sting of loss, the redemptive power of love, and the tireless push toward healing. Through it all, Regrowth reminds us that life, though fractured, can still blossom anew.
Autorentext
Author background=================Peter Freeman lives on Salt Spring Island on the west coast of Canada. He writes nonfiction and fiction novels, screen and stage plays, short stories, magazine articles, and poetry.Peter grew up in what was once the sleepy fishing village of Noosa Heads on the Sunshine Coast, just south of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. He started his career as a cadet surveyor and then as a journeyman fitter and turner before focusing on computer science at the University of Tasmania.While in Hobart, Peter joined the local rock climbing club, where he later met Max Dorfligger, a carpenter, shipwright, and famous Swiss mountaineer. Peter sailed across the Tasman Sea with Max in the thirty-two-foot sloop, Sunshine, that Max had built to New Zealand, where Peter then spent the next few years driving trains and building his sailboat, Laivina.Eventually, Peter sailed from New Zealand to Australia and then to Canada, where he incorporated an Information Technology company that produced and sold scientific and business software to universities, governments, and the private sector. In 1984, Peter departed Victoria, British Columbia, to sail his thirty-two-foot sloop, Laivina, on a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the globe, breaking the existing world record with a time of 236 days. His book, Cape Horn Birthday, is an account of this journey.Peter is a masters athlete who has represented Canada internationally in world championships, competing in Italy, South Africa, Australia, the USA, and Canada, and has won gold, silver, and bronze medals in these competitions in the 100, 200, 400, and 800 metre events. In 2003, at 51, Peter was ranked 11th in the world and 1st in Canada in the 400-metre event for his time in Puerto Rico of 55.10 seconds.Peter has twice ridden his bicycle across Canada and, at the age of 61, bicycled the 15,400 kilometres around the perimeter of Australia, unsupported, in 79 days, averaging 200 kilometres a day.His colourful history has given him an endless vault of story ideas to write about, as his publishing experience illustrates:Awards====== . Winner - 2019 University of Saskatchewan, The Fieldstone Review's literary prize - "Hidden Message" . Best Short Story (Shortlist): "In the Waiting Room" - Best of 2018 Adelaide Literary Award . Best Poem (Finalist): "Last Beating" - Best of 2018 Adelaide Literary AwardPublished========= . Books Novels Deadly Delivery - 363 pages - Ensilwood Publishing, SSI - 2025 The Silenced Boy - 266 pages - Ensilwood Publishing, SSI - 2025 Fleeing the 51st State - 274 pages - Tablet Publications, Vancouver, BC - 2025 The Worm Lady's Daughter - 256 pages - Ensilwood Publishing, SSI - 2025 Nonfiction Cape Horn Birthday: Record-Breaking Solo Non-Stop Circumnavigation - 348 pages - Seaworthy Publications Inc. FL - 2018. Short Stories Elements: Thirteen Stories (2nd Ed) - 305 pages - Ensilwood Publishing, SSI - 2025 Screen and Stage Plays Alchemy Alive: Twelve Screen and Stage Plays - Fiction - 382 pages - Ensilwood Publishing, SSI - 2021 Anthologies In the Waiting Room - Best of 2018 Adelaide Literary Award - Short Stories - Adelaide Books, New York. Last Beating - Best of 2018 Adelaide Literary Award - Poetry - Adelaide Books, New York. Poetry Growth: Life's Flow in Poetry (2nd Ed - #1 Growth series) - 141 pages - Ensilwood Publishing, SSI - 2025 Regrowth: Reaching for the Poetic Sky (#2 Growth series) - 119 pages - Ensilwood Publishing, SSI - 2025