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“Poets and Peers” is a poignant memoir that chronicles Nick and Carla’s personal journey through mental illness and recovery. They share their experiences with raw honesty and courage aiming to inspire and educate readers about living with mental health challenges. It is such a testament to the journey they have endured, the support they have had along the way and have given to others, and the gift of love they share for each other. Very powerful and inspiring!
~Kelly A. Fried
Executive Director
Chesterfield Community Services Board
"I heard you! This book is an artistic thread of tragedy, romance, and resilience. The authors wove poetry and prose in a way that braided the trauma of the past with the wisdom of the present to create a tapestry of storytelling that left me wanting to keep reading until I came to the end. . . or the present. The illustrations used watercolors to mimic the flow of colored water with the colorful events of their lives to create the final artistry that is the book. Although no one should ever have created the trauma that you experienced, the description of how you found the healing power of love gives readers hope for healing. Better life is to come!"
~Dr. Nina Beaman
"I love the book. Heartbreaking, beautiful writing, a treasure, an inspiration"
~Sally Cramer-Holzgrefe.
Carla and Nick,
I spoke to both of you briefly and bought your amazing book Poets and Peers when I went on the Fan Art Stroll on Hanover Avenue in May. I did not realize what a compelling story I would find within each page. The words and the stories you have shared are so profound. Your ability to rise above the major mental and physical health issues you have faced leave me so humbled with the blessings of my own life. Your words beautifully capture the imagination especially when you talk about your garden (I love gardening and my flowers) and sipping coffee. Your love of nature and the beauty of your surroundings awakened me to my own surroundings and how there is such peace in nature.
I don't really know what it is like to deal with muscular dystrophy, mental health issues,the healing power of peer support and putting your struggles and blessings into words but you have captured it all in this phenomenal read. I also very much enjoyed your paintings/pictures Carla. Your love and support of each other is so deep and rich. I hope others are captivated by your poetry and stories as much as I was.
Thank you for writing this amazing book. My blessings to both you as your continue your journey together in this life.
~Brenda Bartges
Midlothian VA
Poets and Peers is a brave, personal gift of healing and generosity. Carla and Nick have written from their hearts, sharing their courageous journeys through mental illness, recovery, and love. Told through each of their collected poems, pieces of their life stories are revealed gradually, with ups and downs not unlike recovery itself, pain points interspersed among lighter moments and nuggets of insight.
Their first book, they openly pay tribute to the confessional poets, yet they have created something valuably unique: a poetry book that is a blending of two individuals’ personal struggles, a calling out of injustice and a message of hope through peer support, powered by love for each other. Above all it is profoundly honest, and we should thank them for sharing their lives with us.
~Bruce Cruser, Executive Director
Mental Health Virginia
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Nick and Carla's stories are affirming, powerful, and inspiring, and they come together in such a beautiful way. I love this book.
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~Kelley Rafferty
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Poets and Peers: Our story of mental health recovery through love, peer support, and poetry by Carla and Nick Pappas inspires and uplifts. Carla and Nick share their profound love and healing journey through the difficult terrains of trauma, muscular dystrophy and serious mental and emotional health challenges.
My words cannot do justice to the depth of their healing, grit, and grace. Carla’s heart-warming watercolors offer visual delights as both authors share their soulful poetic evolution. Please gift yourself this beautiful poetry and watercolor collection to greatly expand your heart and mind thanks to the poets’ intimacy and truth.
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~Heather Peck
I highly recommend this incredible work of poetry and prose. This book itself is such a unique concept, where both spouses combine their work into one shared volume of an interconnected story. The poems, prose, and art pieces contained within speak to the authors' multi-layered journeys of recovery and healing--individually, as a couple, and as a part of their local community movements for social justice and human rights. They do not paint the process of recovery in an overly simplistic way, but illustrate the nuance and complexity, the ups and downs that are faced by anyone striving for more wholeness and healing for themselves and their communities.​
~Leah Harris
The hardest thing to do is to give yourself permission to create. This lovely collection of poetry is about finding healing and peace, about remembering those whose journey ended too soon, and about taking back the narrative of your life. Its existence is an act of courage. To make something and share it with the world means you have summoned enough peace and power to feel worthy of your own voice. Carla and Nicholas Pappas have joined so many peers and mental health warriors in claiming their innate human right to create. We are all born with this divine right. No one ever had the right to try and dim your light. Thank you to the Pappas for this contribution.
~Erin Lessin Mahone
If the pen is mightier than the sword, my cousin Nicholas and his bride Carla have captured and transfigured the painful dark forces and events of their collective lives and on the journey found peace and love. This cathartic collection of poetry empathically invites the reader to revisit their own psychological brokeness, while at the same time gives hope that healing of lifelong trauma is possible. Knowing the subjects and places that Nicholas portrayed, but only exposed to glimpses in my youth, this work confirmed suspicions and brought us together after years of involuntary estrangement. I commend them both on their courage and the benefit their poems will bring to others who struggle.
~Michael G. Pappas
Executive Director
San Francisco Interfaith Council
This work is truly remarkable. I highly recommend for any one dealing with trauma and mental health/substance use issues. A creative expression through poetry and prose of the highs and lows of the recovery journey. This book provides hope for those suffering and demonstrates the resiliency of those often undervalued and overlooked by society. Very well written! Nick and Carla have had such an impact on the lives of others they have helped as well as the lives of those that have assisted them along the way. Bravo!
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~Nathan Cooke
Forests Edge
By Nicholas Pappas
From Phoenix Rising – Volume 7, Issue 2
My reality becomes distorted
when my coals turn red,
and I can’t hear anything;
I don’t know what you said.
How much is real,
how much is altered,
when all you see is dead?
Walking the only path you know,
deep into the dense forest woods.
The path you’ve traveled so often,
trampled on with heavy boots.
Killing everything underfoot;
the hope you held within.
Are there other paths to take;
new places to explore?
Something different offered,
something more,
than the same path you’ve taken,
every time before.
Can you deviate from the footprints,
right in front of you.
Avoiding the pull of what is easy and hard;
all you’ve ever known.
Not falling back on old behaviors,
or repeating past mistakes.
But blazing new trails,
untraveled and new;
to the forests edge,
where there is a whole new world
in front of you.
March 4, 2023
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Lonesome Tree
By Nicholas Pappas
We went for a ride up Skyline Drive
and there standing on a mountain
in all its glory was a lonesome tree.
We were drawn to its beauty,
stark, like an old black and white photo;
the one you discover at the bottom of a drawer.
It looked forgotten and in need of company,
which we provided.
Its leaves had left and stopped returning long ago
and were we imagined living in the valley below.
Its limbs, contorted by age, were pulled in every direction,
most notably towards the fall sky, as if in prayer or deep meditation.
They were a site to behold for anyone whose eyes were open.
As I stood before it, I wondered to myself;
why do we leave those who grow old?
Why do we stop listening to their stories told
and learning from their lessons lived?
Why do we leave them to weep alone,
silent tears that fall into the earth?
And fail to see the beauty in the cracks in their bark
and the trunk that stands and observes?
And what of the fallen trees, who still breathe,
waiting for passers-by to acknowledge their presence
and sit with them for a visit.
Imagine a world where we found wisdom in unexpected places
and in the silence right in front of us.
Imagine a world where we listened to trees.
November 14, 2023
Trying to Write
By Nicholas Pappas
I am trying to write; trying too hard. The harder I try, the harder I try. Until I am left with a well that is nothing but dry. It’s me and my pen and words that won’t come or won’t go where I want them to go or flow where I want them to flow.
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So, I sit in our bedroom in the chair in the corner. The door closed, shutting out the noise. The window curtain, shear, letting in the gray light on a drizzly fall day. And me in my vault finding fault with whatever I write. And so, I try not to try and just let the drizzly fall day fill up my well and drink the words in, with my eyes opened wide.
November, 2023
Vacuuming
By Carla Pappas
If I were vacuuming
I would suck up the memories
that no longer serve me.
I would roll over the negative thoughts.
I would pick up the hairs of self-doubt and
then I would empty the bag.
If I were vacuuming;
I would suck up white supremacists;
I would roll over racism;
I would spit out the dirty truth of our history
and fill their ignorant minds.
I would wait until the carpet was bare,
collecting the heavy lint of hatred in the bag;
like a cloud of dust never to be experienced again.
If I were vacuuming;
I would suck up crippling diseases.
I would roll over struggles;
I would spit out the roadblocks
and fast track the clinical trials.