Out the big window in front of me, through the green yard sheltered by walnut and magnolia trees, my neighbor swings in his yard, old chains creaking. His dog runs outside. A baby deer sleeps in the grass on the other side of my yard. This is the scene I live every summer. But I haven’t always noticed it.

There are many mundane moments we live through every day. So much slips beneath our noticing. Andrea’s poems remind us how to see—to see everything. The easy, the messy, the beauty in it all. They bring us back to the part of ourselves that sees clearly, without rushing or avoiding anything. Their poems show the way they have filled their life with love in every way possible.

Whether writing about gender, mental health, climate change, illness, or aliens, Andrea brings a lightness to the most painful subjects. They hold up a magnifying glass to all the suffering in the world to show that there are little specks of light everywhere.

As Andrea says,

“…every falling leaf is a tiny kite

with a string too small to see, held

by the part of me in charge

of making beauty

out of grief.”

While the world was on pause in 2020, Gisele Pelicot (now Guillou, her maiden name) was facing the deterioration of her life. Her story has been shared as a tale of male induced tragedy. At its peak in the global news cycle, her face appeared above headlines that mocked her, questioned her, or praised her.

I thought she looked strong. Even in blurred shots of her wearing her bulky black sunglasses, I sensed from her a dignity that held firm among the reporters that followed her and swarmed outside the courthouse.

I don’t know much about French culture, much less about the feminist discourse there. I do know that A Hymn To Life doesn’t only explore feminism through the French lens, but narrows in on Gisele and her experiences with brutal honesty. In more ways than one, she subverts the expectation that she would, or should, be ashamed of her experiences. Her decision to waive the anonymity of her trial in 2024 shocked many, including the judges overseeing her case, but it brought into focus the men who had abused her and her identity as a woman fighting against them, rather than a victim.

Anyone who identifies as a woman, anyone who has dealt with loss, betrayal or abuse, would find hope in this memoir. It pulls apart the victimhood attached to survivors and reveals its complexities, the many layers of what it means to be someone who has lived and who chooses to keep living. Gisele does not take on the image of an icon, martyr or celebrity. The way she weaves through her childhood in the French countryside, then her teen-hood as she explores her body and her relationships, and ultimately her life as it was with Monsieur Pelicot, leaves nothing to be questioned. It is an honest look into how one can be faced with a tragedy and still retain who they are, before and after.