Poetry in Layers with Carl Patterson

Black Man. Bus Stop: Generational Trauma and Brutality

In this season finale of Poetry in Layers, I share one of the most personal and painful pieces I have ever written. The poem reflects a moment of police brutality I experienced when I was twenty years old. The episode focuses on how racism, mistaken identity, and state violence shape the nervous system long after the event ends. I guide listeners through the poem’s structure, its clipped and repetitive language, and how that form mirrors the rhythm of hypervigilance and survival. Through an IFS and somatic lens, I explore the protectors, the exiles, and the physical responses that emerge when danger comes from those who carry authority. I expand the frame to explore the cultural and historical patterns that surround these encounters. I reflect on how Black men often become symbols of suspicion, how the phrase be safe becomes a mix of blessing and warning, and how generational trauma lives in breath, posture, and memory. This episode offers an invitation to witness truth, to honor the body’s story, and to consider how safety and dignity can become shared responsibilities. When I return to the poem a second time, I ask listeners to hear the words and also feel the weight behind them. ---------------- Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 00:22 - The Importance of Vulnerability  03:36 - The Poem: bus stop Black man 07:00 - The Literary Breakdown 11:41 - The Clinical Breakdown  15:12 - The Cultural Breakdown  18:09 - Reflective Questions  19:27 - Be a Witness 20:50 - Second Reading:l bus stop Black man 23:47 - Closing --------------- Carl's Publication The Mis-Execution of a Black Son by Carl Patterson, LPC - https://amzn.to/3UyX6nP --------------- Book Resources As Amazon Affiliates, we earn from qualifying purchases --------------- Poetry Books: Citizen: An American Lyric — Claudia Rankine [https://www.amazon.com/Citizen-American-Lyric-Claudia-Rankine/dp/1555976905] Incendiary Art — Patricia Smith [https://www.amazon.com/Incendiary-Art-Poems-Kingsley-Poetry/dp/0810134330] Stereo(TYPE) — Jonah Mixon-Webster [https://www.amazon.com/Stereo-TYPE-Poems-Jonah-Mixon-Webster/dp/1524711942] Psychology / Healing Books Black Men and Racial Trauma — Yamonte Cooper [https://www.amazon.com/Black-Men-Racial-Trauma-Interventions/dp/1032554118] Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience — Sheila Wise Rowe [https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Racial-Trauma-Road-Resilience/dp/0830845887] Racial Trauma: Clinical Strategies and Techniques for Healing Invisible Wounds — Kenneth V. Hardy (Editor) [https://www.amazon.com/racial-trauma/s?k=racial+trauma]

What They Left Me to Lift: ADHD and Trauma

In this episode of Poetry in Layers, I explore ADHD as more than a diagnosis. I approach it as a landscape shaped by memory, trauma, and the nervous system’s attempts to survive what childhood could not hold. Through my poem what they left me to lift, I trace how attention splinters when presence is inconsistent and how a mind learns to carry absence, instability, and early responsibility long before it has language for any of it. I look at ADHD clinically and personally, examining how scattered focus can evolve from vigilance, how forgetfulness can emerge from chronic emotional overload, and how endurance becomes a learned posture. The poem moves through fathers who vanish, mothers overwhelmed by their own storms, sisters who grow up too fast, and the quiet ache of wanting to be seen. It also holds the moments of grounding that arrive through fatherhood, when a daughter’s simple gesture becomes enough to steady an entire day. This episode expands the frame beyond the individual. I reflect on how schools, families, and workplaces often misread ADHD through judgment rather than curiosity and how culture, race, and poverty shape the story of attention. What we call distraction is often the mind’s attempt to manage too many open doors at once. At its heart, Episode 11 is a meditation on survival, tenderness, and the search for belonging inside a mind that has learned to think in fragments. It is an invitation to look at ADHD, memory, and endurance with compassion and to imagine what becomes possible when we finally feel seen. ---------------- Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 00:19 - Colors of the Brain 02:50.   - The Poem: what they left me to lift 07:30 - The Literary Breakdown 09:10 - The Clinical Breakdown 11:25 - Reflection Questions  12:39 - Second Reading: what they left me to lift 18:07 - Closing --------------- Carl's Publication The Mis-Execution of a Black Son by Carl Patterson, LPC - https://amzn.to/3UyX6nP --------------- Book Resources As Amazon Affiliates, we earn from qualifying purchases --------------- Poetry Related Books: • Not Here — Hieu Minh Nguyen: amazon.com/…/156689509X [https://www.amazon.com/Not-Here-Hieu-Minh-Nguyen/dp/156689509X]   • Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude — Ross Gay: amazon.com/…/0822963310 [https://www.amazon.com/Catalog-Unabashed-Gratitude-Pitt-Poetry/dp/0822963310]   • Night Sky with Exit Wounds — Ocean Vuong: amazon.com/…/155659495X [https://www.amazon.com/Night-Exit-Wounds-Ocean-Vuong/dp/155659495X]   • The Carrying — Ada Limón: amazon.com/…/1571315136 [https://www.amazon.com/Carrying-Poems-Ada-Lim%C3%B3n/dp/1571315136]  Psychology Related Books: • Scattered Minds — Gabor Maté: amazon.com/…/1785042211 [https://www.amazon.com/Scattered-Minds-Origins-Attention-Disorder/dp/1785042211]   • The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk: amazon.com/…/0143127748 [https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748]   • Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors — Janina Fisher:amazon.com/…/0415708230 [https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Fragmented-Selves-Trauma-Survivors/dp/0415708230]   • Smart but Scattered Adults — Peg Dawson & Richard Guare:amazon.com/…/1462516963 [https://www.amazon.com/Smart-but-Scattered-Guide-Success/dp/1462516963]

The Color My Brain Remembers: Trauma, Memory, and the Body

This episode begins with color: blue for sadness, red for panic, yellow for rare hope. I explore how emotion lives in the body long after language fades, how the nervous system paints its own portrait of what we have endured and become. In “The Color My Brain Remembers,” I move through those shades, tracing how people translate loss, faith, and resilience into something visible. The poem speaks to memory as texture, the way feeling can color a whole room before a single word is spoken. What follows is a conversation between therapy and art, between the personal and the cultural. I draw from Internal Family Systems and trauma research, as well as the stories our communities carry, showing how color becomes archive, survival code, and language of becoming. By the end, the focus is not on explaining healing but on recognizing its tone, that quiet, unnamed color between exhaustion and hope. “The Color My Brain Remembers” invites you to notice the colors that live within your story and to imagine what new shades might rise when you allow them to be seen. ---------------- Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 00:19 - Colors of the Brain 02:47 - The Poem: the color my brain remembers  06:00 - The Literary Breakdown 08:38 - The Clinical Breakdown 12:40 - Reflection Questions  14:03 - Exploring Colors  15:11 - Second Reading: the color my brain remembers  18:17 - Closing ---------------- Carl's Publication The Mis-Execution of a Black Son by Carl Patterson, LPC - https://amzn.to/3UyX6nP [https://amzn.to/3UyX6nP] --------------- Book Resources As Amazon Affiliates, we earn from qualifying purchases --------------- Poetry Related Books • The Book of Healing — Najwa Zebian [https://www.amazon.com/Book-Healing-Najwa-Zebian/dp/1524867357] • Poems of Healing — Edited by Karl Kirchwey [https://www.amazon.com/Poems-Healing-Everymans-Library-Pocket/dp/1101908254] • I See You: Healing Through Poetry — Corrina Wilson [https://www.amazon.com/See-You-Powerful-Awareness-Recovery-ebook/dp/B0F6T22K6G] Psychology Related Books • No Bad Parts — Richard C. Schwartz [https://www.amazon.com/No-Bad-Parts-Restoring-Wholeness/dp/1683646681] • The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk [https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748] • The Pain We Carry — Natalie Y. Gutierrez [https://www.amazon.com/Pain-We-Carry-Healing-Handbook/dp/1684039312] _______________ Carl Patterson is a licensed professional counselor, published author, public speaker, and spoken word artist. Click the link to learn more about Carl and his works - https://www.familysolutionsok.com/carl-patterson [https://www.familysolutionsok.com/carl-patterson] ------------ This podcast is published and produced by Family Solutions Media, a media program of Family Solutions Counseling. For more great content, please check out our LinkTree - https://www.linktr.ee/familysolutionsok [https://www.linktr.ee/familysolutionsok]

Garage Widower: Intergenerational Trauma

In this episode of Poetry in Layers, I explore the weight of intergenerational trauma—the way shame, silence, and emotional abandonment pass from one generation to the next like a baton in a race we never agreed to run. I share personal reflections on my relationship with my father, read from my poem The First Time, and present my new piece garage widower. Through poetry and story, I unpack how absence and avoidance live in families, how they shape our coping, and how cycles of pain can be inherited without ever being spoken aloud. This episode looks at trauma through an Internal Family Systems lens, offering language for protector parts, silence, and the body’s strategies for survival. I also leave listeners with reflective questions to help them notice the “garages” they retreat to and imagine what healing might look like beyond them. ---------------- Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 00:22 - Intergenerational Trauma  00:49 - The First Time I Attempted to Fight My Father 03:01 - The Story We Inherit 05:03 - The Poem: garage widower  06:29 - The Literary Breakdown 10:40  - The Clinical Breakdown 13:04 - Reflection Questions  14:05- Second Reading: garage widower 15:50 - Closing --------------- Carl's Publication The Mis-Execution of a Black Son by Carl Patterson, LPC - https://amzn.to/3UyX6nP [https://amzn.to/3UyX6nP] --------------- Book Resources As Amazon Affiliates, we earn from qualifying purchases --------------- Poetry Related Books • All the Flowers Kneeling — Paul Tran [https://amzn.to/49zuGT8].   • Don’t Call Us Dead — Danez Smith [https://amzn.to/4onwTG3].   • Postcolonial Love Poem — Natalie Diaz [https://amzn.to/438sQ7R].   • Citizen: An American Lyric — Claudia Rankine [https://amzn.to/3JEMgut].   Psychology Related Books • It Didn’t Start With You — Mark Wolynn [https://amzn.to/490mEmb].   • Break the Cycle — Mariel Buqué. [https://amzn.to/490mEmb]   • My Grandmother’s Hands — Resmaa Menakem [https://amzn.to/4otcMGu].   • Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents — Lindsay C. Gibson [https://amzn.to/491FZDp]. • The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk [https://amzn.to/3JIQnWj]. ------------ Carl Patterson is a licensed professional counselor, published author, public speaker, and spoken word artist. Click the link to learn more about Carl and his works - https://www.familysolutionsok.com/carl-patterson [https://www.familysolutionsok.com/carl-patterson] ------------ This podcast is published and produced by Family Solutions Media, a media program of Family Solutions Counseling. For more great content, please check out our LinkTree - https://www.linktr.ee/familysolutionsok [https://www.linktr.ee/familysolutionsok]

The Sunset Is Beautiful, Isn't It? Attachment, Avoidance, and Childhood in a Divided Home

In this episode of Poetry in Layers, I share one of my most personal poems, “the sunset is beautiful isn’t it?” It explores childhood, attachment, and the experience of growing up in a home shaped by both love and fracture. I reflect on how avoidance often becomes a survival strategy when closeness feels unsafe, and how beauty such as a sunset, music, or art can serve as a refuge when relationships carry too much weight. Drawing from my own family story, I connect the poem to attachment theory, Internal Family Systems, and the ways the nervous system adapts to conflict. This conversation expands beyond one household. It speaks to the patterns many of us inherit, especially within families navigating systemic pressures and cultural histories. It also considers both the protection distance provides and the cost it carries, while pointing to the possibility of choosing new paths. Through poetry, reflection, and therapeutic framing, I invite you to sit with the tension between awe and avoidance and to imagine how healing can emerge when love and safety grow together. ---------------- Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 00:22 - Two Things Can Be True 01:16 - Who Modeled Healthy Relationships For You? 04:20 - The Sunset Doesn’t Ask You To Hold The Galaxy Together 06:24 - The Poem: the sunset is beautiful, isn’t it?  08:38 - The Literary Breakdown 12:50 - The Clinical Breakdown 19:35 - Reflection Questions  20:51- Second Reading: the sunset is beautiful, isn’t it?  23:19 - Closing --------------- Carl's Publication The Mis-Execution of a Black Son by Carl Patterson, LPC - https://amzn.to/3UyX6nP [https://amzn.to/3UyX6nP] --------------- Book Resources As Amazon Affiliates, we earn from qualifying purchases --------------- Poetry Related Books * Soft Science — Franny Cho [https://amzn.to/4868C1N]i   * The Carrying — Ada Limón [https://amzn.to/486x3MK]   * Citizen: An American Lyric — Claudia Rankine [https://amzn.to/4nT3FxS]   * Black Girl, Call Home — Jasmine Mans [https://amzn.to/3VHd2ot]   Psychology Related Books * All About Love — bell hooks [https://amzn.to/42LpR4W]   * Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving — Pete Walker [https://amzn.to/4nM5woi]   * The Myth of Normal — Gabor Maté [https://amzn.to/42hCMvk]   * No Bad Parts — Richard C. Schwartz   [https://amzn.to/42iStSV] * Set Boundaries, Find Peace — Nedra Glover Tawwab   [https://amzn.to/42NXTWd] ------------ Carl Patterson is a licensed professional counselor, published author, public speaker, and spoken word artist. Click the link to learn more about Carl and his works - https://www.familysolutionsok.com/carl-patterson [https://www.familysolutionsok.com/carl-patterson] ------------ This podcast is published and produced by Family Solutions Media, a media program of Family Solutions Counseling. For more great content, please check out our LinkTree - https://www.linktr.ee/familysolutionsok [https://www.linktr.ee/familysolutionsok]