Shock and grief put into words: Poetry book sales aid WNC nonprofit after Hurricane Helene

WEAVERVILLE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — After Hurricane Helene devastated the mountains nearly one year ago, Kelly Riedesel didn’t set out to write a book. Writing is her outlet.

On Sept. 27, the one-year mark after the disaster, her book “Proud Roads: Poems in the Aftermath of Hurricane Helene” will be released. It is published by Asheville-based Loblolly Press and includes 32 poems written in the weeks following the storm.

Half of the proceeds from the book will go to nonprofit Swannanoa Communities Together, which provides food, shelter, and other support.

“Writing about the aftermath started as a mental health tool for myself, then I realized it could help others too,” Riedesel told Queen City News. “Everyone was so busy every day physically helping others, but when the work stopped in the evenings because of exhaustion and darkness, they needed something to help them process what they were experiencing. That’s what poetry can do.”

“I was taking screenshots of my poems off my computer and posting them to my Facebook page as I was able to find power and internet,” she said. “Slowly, folks started telling me they were looking forward to reading the poems as a reflection of what they had a hard time putting into words because of shock and grief.”

“Media moves on to the next story, but along the double-tracked dirt roads and holler footpaths we cut ourselves, caring has no bounds,” she reads from the title poem “Proud Roads,” penned in October of ‘24. “Our caring is what makes you want to visit, where you’re made to feel like part of the family, where we still craft things by hand. Sentimental heirlooms that help you remember how our caring felt once you get back on the highway.”

The process of writing at the height of the crisis was deeply emotional, she said.

“A year later, I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that I don’t cry about the storm. It was so shocking for so long, sometimes all I could do was just take the temperature of the situation in my soul,” she recalled. “I would break down as I was writing by candlelight. It was gut-wrenching. We knew people died all around us and lost everything they had. The moral injury is impossible to convey. It’s something we carry now.”

Like many in the mountains, the year since the storm has shaped a new life perspective.

“Belonging with each other became uncomplicated overnight after Helene. You couldn’t meet a stranger without seeing yourself in them,” said Riedesel. “There was no separation, and it was beautiful even if for unimaginable reasons. With all the trappings of modern life gone, there was also no separation from nature.”

“Helene solidified my belief that we don’t need a crisis like chronic illness or a catastrophic natural disaster to be vulnerable enough to ensure belonging,” said Riedesel. “We just have to wear our belongings on the outside and extend it to others everywhere we go.”

She hopes the community togetherness after Helene is here to stay.

“The message I hope to convey with “Proud Roads” is for us to consider ways we could live like this every day, without the natural disaster part. When you experience that kind of belonging, I think it’s hard to let it go, something will always feel like it’s missing, and now, I think it’s what’s missing in our country,” the author said.

With “Proud Roads,” Riedesel wants to shed light on the mountain Helene experience by sharing the poetry often written in the darkness of the disaster.