By Cynthia Gibson
Contributing Writer
LOS ANGELES — In a month dedicated to celebrating the achievements, resilience and voices of women, author Erika Roman Saint-Pierre is stepping into the spotlight with a collection of poetry.
After three decades spent helping others tell their stories, the acclaimed ghostwriter is now sharing her own voice through “Embrace — Poems that Undress the Silence,” a collection exploring the emotional landscape of womanhood.
Saint-Pierre, a celebrity ghostwriter credited with more than 200 books, including four that were adapted into films, has finally written her own journey.
“Embrace – Poems that Undress the Silence” is a book of poetry that Saint-Pierre describes as reflections on longing, self-acceptance, and what it means to celebrate the full spectrum of being a woman.
Saint-Pierre follows in the footsteps of influential Black female poets such as Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde and Nikki Giovanni, whose work offered powerful perspectives on relationships, sensuality, racism, motherhood, pain and societal oppression.
The book’s theme has already resonated with readers. Shortly after its release, “Embrace” reached the top spot in Amazon Kindle rankings in Contemporary Poetry, Black Poets, and Women’s Poetry. The collection also ranked in the top 20 in Amazon’s paperback category for Black and African American Poetry and Poetry by Women.
Saint-Pierre said she has always been a poet at heart, writing her first book — a psychological thriller — when she was just 5 years old. Self-described as “painfully shy,” she turned to writing as a way to express intense feelings, but rarely shared her work publicly.
While “Embrace” is her third book, it is the first she has actively promoted.
At the Embrace book launch last month, Saint-Pierre spoke about the transition from helping others tell their stories to finally telling her own.
“It’s cool to get in people’s heads and pull their stories out of them,” Saint-Pierre said. “I’ve been doing that forever, but honestly, it was like I was hiding. I felt like my poems were eating away at me on the inside.
“And I have so many stories of my own,” she added. “I’ve done enough for other people. Let me just bite the bullet and do it.”
Coming from a conservative Christian background, publishing a book that explores a unique feminine perspective was both terrifying and liberating for Saint-Pierre.
She describes her poetry as emotionally intense.
“I don’t like for people to read something I’ve written and not come away with something,” she said. “I want people to feel. I like to write things that stick with people.”
The idea for the book began with a series of text exchanges between Saint-Pierre and fellow writer Lori Bellman. The two met at a women’s leadership conference in Cleveland and began sharing short pieces of writing and reflections through text messages.
Saint-Pierre realized the exchanges were powerful and suggested they collaborate on a poetry collection. Bellman immediately agreed.
Bellman began writing as a way to process trauma and express her emotions. Through their exchanges, the two discovered a common thread running through their work — the universal experiences many women share, including love, loss, betrayal and resilience.
“Women have been silenced for so long — told to smile, be pretty, not say what you mean, and not talk about certain things,” Bellman said. “We thought about how amazing it would be if we brought other female writers into this. It became less about what we could gain from writing and more about what we could give to women — a voice, inspiration and maybe even healing.
That’s why we added the tagline, “Embrace – Undressing the Silence.”
Bellman describes her poetry as vivid and deeply rooted in storytelling.
“My poetry reflects life — love, loss, healing and rising after something happens,” she said. “I hope it moves women to take a painful situation and turn it into something valuable. When we share stories with other women, it’s incredibly powerful.”
Ensuring the book reflected a range of women’s voices was important to both Saint-Pierre and Bellman. In addition to Saint-Pierre — the featured poet — and Bellman, the collection includes works from poets Chrissy Costa and Renee Kogler. Like their collaborators, Costa and Kogler share reflections on intimacy, vulnerability and relationships.
Bellman introduced Costa to the project. As a stand-up comedian and comedy writer, Costa said poetry offered her a very different form of expression.
“When I do stand-up comedy, I get in front of people saying the craziest things,” Costa said. “But when it comes to poetry, that part of me was silent for years.”
Costa said contributing to Embrace required her to tap into a more vulnerable side of herself.
“I had to embrace a different voice — the vulnerable part of myself that I don’t usually share with people,” she said. “It gave me the strength to say more of the things I’ve wanted to say.”
Costa hopes the book inspires women to speak openly and express themselves — whether through writing, art, or their relationships.
Cynthia Gibson is a freelance reporter for Wave Newspapers. She can be reached at ckgcommunications@gmail.com.
