Torpoint poet Laura-Marie Jenks on what comes after the ashes

Her first book was about the damage. The second one asks a harder question: who do you become once it is over?

Laura-Marie Jenks, a model and writer based in Torpoint, has published her second poetry collection, The Gilded Butterfly: Poems Of Reincarnated Love. It follows her 2024 debut, From The Ashes: Poems From Poisonous Love Affairs.

Where the first book dealt with the pain of poisonous relationships, the new one picks up afterwards. It covers the slow and sometimes complicated work of healing, of finding self-worth again, and of learning that surviving the past does not mean being defined by it.

In her introduction, Laura-Marie describes how, after taking time to heal, she became able to embrace her emotions instead of fearing their depth. She writes that she is “no longer ashamed to be authentic” and says she wants readers to feel the energy she found along the way.

📷The Gilded Butterfly: Poems Of Reincarnated Love by Laura-Marie Jenks

A poem about the mirror

One of the most exposed pieces in the collection is called Body dysmorphia. It opens with the speaker unable to trust what her own eyes are showing her, staring into broken glass.

The poem covers years spent trying to fit other people’s expectations, and then a gradual turn towards compassion. By the end the speaker is promising to learn to love herself, and telling her heart that after everything she has been through, she deserves better.

It does not pretend that healing is instant. Someone can still struggle with their reflection while learning to be kinder to themselves, and the poem holds both at once. The idea behind it is that a body which has carried a person through everything they have survived deserves compassion and not punishment.

Letters to a younger self

That thinking runs through the rest of the book. In Dear me, Laura-Marie writes directly to her younger self, telling her she was never destroyed by what happened to her. The poem closes with a short instruction to go and be herself.

Mindful truths looks at how painful memories can stay present long after an experience has ended. It deals with flashbacks, triggers, and the difficulty of convincing the mind that it is finally safe to let go. It ends on hope, with the thought that the heart already knows how to heal.

Choosing me is about the guilt that can come with putting yourself first, and the realisation that always sacrificing your own happiness creates a different kind of pain. The poem’s answer is that she has to rise and that life has to go on.

And in Reincarnation of love, Laura-Marie uses the phoenix to describe becoming someone new. She is clear that rebirth is not gentle, and that it means leaving an earlier version of yourself behind.

Why a gilded butterfly?

The title carries the same idea. A gilded butterfly is beautiful but held down, plated in gold and unable to fly. Laura-Marie uses the image to explore the gap between looking perfect and being free.

Another poem, Craving authenticity, puts it as an instruction to readers to be their own definition.

The collection is not only about trauma and body image. It also takes in female empowerment, ambition, grief, spirituality and romance, alongside poems about friendship, family, creativity, nature and finding love again.

Meet Laura-Marie Jenks

Laura-Marie will be signing books at the Carbeile Inn Christmas Craft Fair, where she will be from 12pm to 4pm.

Both The Gilded Butterfly and From The Ashes will be part of it. There is also a Spotify playlist for each book, named after its title, made up of the music that sits behind the poems.

📷Laura-Marie Jenks