The Peace Chronicles

The Peace Chronicles is poet and scholar-activist Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s second full-length collection. Documenting her last moments in the Vortex, the book moves from a searing betrayal by Tyrone (Love from the Vortex & Other Poems) to her equanimity with it. The poems also record her peacemaking with her father, the tireless work of her ancestors, and celebrates the freedom that brings her tranquility, contentment and joy.

In this sophomore collection, readers are carried along a journey that asks: How can we learn from pain that grips us tightly? When does a moment seat itself between two halves of our lives, and when do we actually notice? When time is not a sufficient healer, what language allows us to fill our wounds with light, knowing they may never fully close? Where does love go to be laid to rest and when it rises again, do we name it resurrection, awakening, or reimagining?

This recommended reading and discussion guide is shared and sponsored in partnership with Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz.

Book club questions for The Peace Chronicles by Dr Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

How can we learn from pain that grips us tightly? Do some lessons need to be learned through experience alone? How can we live so that we learn from the pain and experience of others?

When does a moment seat itself between two halves of our lives, and when do we actually notice? When do you feel like you’ve healed and learned from experience? What does healing feel like?

When time is not a sufficient healer, what language allows us to fill our wounds with light, knowing they may never fully close?

Where does love go to be laid to rest? And when we experience it again, do we name it resurrection, awakening, or reimagining?

The Peace Chronicles Book Club Questions PDF

Click here for a printable PDF of the The Peace Chronicles discussion questions

Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz is a lighthouse. Whether teaching, writing, or prophesizing, Sealey-Ruiz is astute in the building of community. She fortifies readers through a rich lexicon as she languages liberation with the Black feminist lens as a compass. These poems are psalms and serve as brilliant beams to bring her readers safely home."

- Mahogany L. Browne, Author of Chlorine Sky & i remember death by its proximity to what i love most

"Sealey-Ruiz's second full-length collection is a remarkable journey through healing and revelation. These poems are dazzling lyrical meditations that leave the reader breathless."

- Rio Cortez, New York Times best selling author of The ABCs of Black History

"Through 'forgiveness and a new way to love,' she writes poems of a free spirit; reminding the men who wounded her, 'I am not better than you, I just figured out my worth.'”

- Micah Bournes, Poet, Musician, Author of Here Comes This Dreamer

"Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s latest collection, The Peace Chronicles, stirs a range of emotions, but one feeling lingers longer than the rest: courage. Courage to be vulnerable, courage to face fear, courage to live an examined life, and courage to choose self-love as the foundation of all others over and over again. And what is courage but simply love or, more precisely, heart? Sealey-Ruiz models it for us by approaching the page with radical honesty and bold candor that adds a refreshing realness to her records. In doing so, she forges an impenetrable peace even from the center of a vortex, peace that not only settles her own soul, but radiates for the highest good of all who experience her words."

- Amelia Simone Herbert, Author of Contagious Acts of Freedom

"Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz knows what it means to love yourself as a 'trusted traveller,' a solo song, a live wire scraped open by love. The Peace Chronicles reminds us that 'fear will hold you hostage / until you release it,' and begs us to love who we are in the eye of grief and chaos 'to find our way back / again.' These poems shine."

- Adam Falkner, PhD, Author of The Willies