PACE — Glenda B. Frazier has been writing her entire life.
As a young girl, one of nine children, she would write in journals, keeping track of the things happening in her life. Her life as a military wife brought her to Pace, where her husband retired from the United States Marine Corps.
“We retired here in Pace because of the schools,” Frazier said.
She said when here children left home, one to the Army, the other to Tampa, her husband started a contractor job and Frazier found herself with a lot of time on her hands.
She was still writing and with her love of rhyming her writing style went to poetry. She joined the Santa Rosa Writer Guild.
“As the middle child in a very large family I became an observer,” Frazier said. “We grew up poor and with a lot of love, and a strong belief in God.”
Frazier said she began noticing people in and out of her family. She got to where she could tell what was going on inside their heads by their actions. She also took notice of the power of God’s love when those in trouble turned themselves over to God.
There is something in her books for everyone. Her poetry offers love, compassion, truth, harsh truth, reality, giving and empathy.
“I take things to heart,” Frazier said.
She give an example of seeing a homeless man she encountered and immediately could empathize with him. She said she could feel how invisible he felt and it touched her heart. She gets emotional describing the encounter but she really felt invisible just like the homeless man.
Her second book includes a short story about a stripper that prostitutes to make a living. Eventually the woman finds redemption through God.
It sounds like a sad and typical story, but it is the way Frazier writes and describes the subject that brings the reader into the story. She knows the intricacies of the life style without ever having lived it herself.
“The ’Lady’ is a combination of people I have known or seen or talked to in my life,” she said.
It is the same in her poetry. She writes about addiction, or about the people that have lost their way.
Frazier said she had a bout of headaches several years ago and the only relief was writing. She had poems and stories pouring from her mind to her hand and on to paper. Every poem and story had something in it that any reader could relate to, and they all had God’s loving grace.
“I knew it was coming from God,” Frazier said.
Frazier had been published in newsletters and college poetry reviews, but had never had her books published. After being turned down by several publishers, she had given up on having her book published and decided to look into self-publishing.
Frazier said the day she started to look into self-publishing she received a call from Bush Publishing & Associates in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They wanted to publish her book of poetry. That was in 2015.
The same publishers picked up her second book, “Poems that Bleed Redemption, Lady of the Night, Her Story,” and published it in 2018.
“I want people to find themselves in my poems and hear the message that they can be helped through the power of God,” Frazier said. “I’m trying to comfort their heart.
“I hear you. I know you’re out there,” she added. “This is what you can do to change your heart and it’s through God.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosas Press Gazette: COMING FROM GOD: Local author releases second book of poetry