Beyond the Horizon

One Can Never Appreciate the Sunshine Until After the Storm

This book is about me and the adversity that he has beset me in this community due to my diagnosed mental illness and my advocacy for the mentally ill. Many of the poems come from life experiences in the past and absorb the reality of death. There were days when no one encouraged me, many ignored me, and others talked about me. This weaved in and out of the poetry when I felt this pain and wrote it out in my poetry. There are also poems relating to nature that revive my mind and inspires me to continue on. America is in some of my poems and how I feel that a nation has come so far but up at a standstill now. I listen to the news everyday because when I graduated in 1963, that was what we were told to do- keep up with the news because the world would get smaller and my poetry reflects what is going on in the world today. This book is a combination of adversity, nature, death, and world conflict. And I think all can relate to my book in diverse ways. My name is Peggy Marie Ridge Oliver, mother of two children, and grandmother of eight. The last I counted. I have a B.A. degree in social work and was pursuing a second B.A. degree in English Literature/Creative writing which was not a completed due to a medical condition. On top of all this, I have had a mental illness for 30 years and accomplished all of the above. Most professional people, especially in the mental health field, say I am a remarkable woman because many people with a diagnosed mental illness do not accomplish this in a lifetime.