Once You Had Hands

Once You Had Hands is a fierce and unflinching collection that chronicles a journey through religious deconstruction, family trauma, and the hard-won work of reclaiming one's own voice. Golden's poems confront the inherited narratives of faith, violence, and silence with stunning directness, transforming personal reckoning into universal questions about survival, truth-telling, and what it means to rebuild a life from its fragments.

Interwoven with Golden's original work are reimagined passages from 17th-century metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan, creating a dialogue between historical spiritual longing and contemporary disillusionment. Accompanied by evocative black-and-white photographs by Michael Wilson, the collection explores what happens when we dare to name what has been unnameable - and discover that in breaking our silence, we might also break ourselves open to something truer.

This debut speaks particularly to readers navigating their own spiritual questioning, those drawn to unflinching examinations of trauma and healing, and anyone who has ever found that poetry can say what ordinary language cannot. Golden's work reveals how creative expression becomes both sanctuary and scalpel, offering a path toward what one reviewer called "hard won joy" and the fierce possibility of transformation.

Published by Humanist Press. Featuring photographs by Michael Wilson.

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