Break the Silence

Melanie Marttila is a Sudbury-based freelance writer and writing
consultant.

Break the Silence is Denise DeMoura’s first full-length poetry
collection. DeMoura’s activism is inescapable. Pick any poem in the
collection and you are likely to find a call to battle, or an ode to
those who have been victims of injustice or abuse.

The poet writes about all forms of abuse—physical, emotional, sexual,
elder—and about sexism, racism, class and labour struggles. She even
tackles big business and its ethical shortcomings. Finally, she writes
about the freedom, healing, and release that the acts of writing and
performing her poetry have offered her. That DeMoura writes with passion
and is deeply invested in her subject matter is undeniable; that her
poetic activism is for all readers is less certain.

Break the Silence will find a welcome home in collections of women’s
poetry or feminist literature. This book would also enrich women studies
libraries.