Poet Janet Anderson will donate all of the profits from her new collection, "After the Tornadoes," to Alabama disaster relief. (The Huntsville Times/Glenn Baeske)HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Tethered by choice to her home by the joys of caring for a child with special needs, pacing in her candle-lit house after the tornadoes, Janet Anderson reached for the one tool she could use to help those whose homes and lives were damaged by the winds: her pen.
"That's when I felt called to do something more than just write a few pieces," Janet Anderson said. "Not everyone can help with on-site clean-up and rebuilding. So I focused on what I could do, and that's write."
In a creative flurry, Anderson poured out her heart and framed vivid snapshots of the devastation and the survival in a collection of poems, "After the Tornadoes: Reflections for Recovery." Her poems resonate with the anguish, confusion, anger and surprising slivers of grace that swirled after the storms.
In the few weeks since the storm, the prize-winning poet completed the poems, self-published the book, and determined to use all of the profits from its sale as a donation to local tornado recovery efforts.
This week she received the surprising news that Books-A-Million stores in Alabama will be stocking the book and will also pass along all of the profits to the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Funds in Alabama.
"Not a penny is going to Books-A-Million," Anderson said. "This is very rare and very generous of BAM to give back in this way to communities in Alabama."
The poems, grouped under "Damages" and "Restoration," stand clear-eyed in the swirling of anger, fear, love and courage that survived the winds.
"How cheated are we," she writes in the title poem, which opens the collection, "if we cannot extend a helping hand, a voice of sensibility, the intimate assurance that life rebounds and it's living, sacred."
Anderson has lived in Huntsville for 26 years. A freelance writer and painter, she has taught poetry workshops in the Huntsville City School system to elementary, middle, and high school students.
Active in her local Methodist church, she is a community advocate for special needs children and has worked with other parents of special needs children to develop community awareness campaigns, special needs ministries and respite care within area churches.
"After the Tornadoes" by Janet AndersonHer works have been published in "Poetry Today," "Piedmont Literary Review," "Fine Arts Press," "Winewood Women Anthology," "Crosscurrents," "Ordinary and Sacred as Blood: Alabama Women Speak," and many others.
Anderson's book will be available next week at Books-A-Million stores locally. Currently, the 160-page book, which includes tornado photographs, is for sale for $20 at the office of Dr. Cheryl Bazzle, 333 Whitesport Drive S.W.; Field Pediatrics, 1106 Gleneagles Drive; Red Door Interiors, 109 Marsheutz Ave. S.W. and Salon South, 12021 Memorial Parkway S.W.