From heartbreak to hope: After a debilitating stroke, Farzana Marie reclaims her words in ‘When Language Left Me’

Farzana Marie’s newly published collection “When Language Left Me: Post-Stroke Poems” invites readers to share in her incredibly inspirational story.

The collection represents Albuquerque resident Farzana Marie’s journey as a poet — moving from the darkness of heartbreak to the light of hope.

Her journey is entwined with her dealing with aphasia, a neurological language disorder caused by brain damage usually from a stroke or an injury.

In Marie’s case she suffered a stroke in 2015. It has impaired her ability to speak and write.

The collection’s first poem “This Bench, Part One” reveals critical moments of that darkened remembrance.

Usually, the poem says, she would be working at night on her doctoral dissertation analyzing 21st century Afghan women’s poetry.

“But tonight, Friday

I would visit with my friends

But tonight, something was off.

I felt … a never-before feeling.

I grabbed the bench and sat down.

I remember

I fall

And blackout.

I remember

that day

And that’s all I remember.”

“Sleep,” the final poem in the book’s first section, explores potential sources of Marie’s stroke while revealing experiences that have helped redefine who she is:

“Where did my stroke come from?

Stress?

Not likely. I thrived on high-stress:

the challenges of the Air Force Academy,

volunteer year at an orphanage in Central Asia,

TedX talk, 26.2-mile Bataan Memorial Death March

(in boots and carrying a 35-lb. rucksack),

jumping out of airplanes, Afghanistan deployment…

Maybe.

Genetics? …Maybe.

Sleep? ….Big maybe.”

At the conclusion of the poem, Marie writes she has dreamt with and without aphasia. Now, with her strong sense of optimism, she is dreaming of a new life and working to repair the loss of language.

Before her stroke, Marie spoke six languages: English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Kazakh and Dari. Dari is a major dialect of Persian.

“After a decade of arduous rehabilitation, she now speaks a seventh: the tongue of remarkable courage,” Paulann Petersen, Oregon poet laureate emerita, wrote in a blurb on the back cover of “When Language Left Me.”

Farzana Marie is the pen name of Felisa Hervey.

Born in southern California, she grew up in Chile. She served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force for 10 years, including two consecutive years deployed in Afghanistan. She also previously served as a civilian volunteer at a Kabul, Afghanistan, orphanage.

In Albuquerque, she is studying flamenco and plans to apply for the Arts-in-Medicine Program at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.

Former U.S. congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona wrote the foreword to Marie’s poetry collection. Giffords has had aphasia since January 2011 when she was shot in the head during an assassination attempt.

Marie also wrote the nonfiction book “Hearts For Sale” and is currently working on a memoir, a memoir that will no doubt be brimming with hope.

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Abandoned Mine, which published Farzana Marie’s book, is a small Albuquerque press that is a free online poetry journal and has published two print poetry anthologies. It has been in existence since 2022.

Its co-founders and co-editors are Robert Grant and Jasen Christensen.

On its website’s home page (abandonedmine.org) is a link to a one-word question “Why?” As in, what’s the reason for the press.

“We started this journal for people who don’t yet know they like poetry. Many people today are of the belief that they don’t ‘get’ poetry, regarding a poem with almost the same trepidation they might regard, say, a complicated physics equation,” Grant and Christensen said.

“The good news is there are thousands of accessible, understandable, relatable poems in the world, ready to be discovered and enjoyed.”