It is her first book since suffering a stroke in 2011 and tells the story of her journey since then.

The book of poetry, Rupture, was originally a small collection of poems written for Susan’s family and friends.

The 72-year-old Exeter resident said she had no thoughts of publishing the poems.

“[After my stroke] I couldn’t write at all for the first few months, I was re-learning the alphabet and days of the week,” she said.

“I thought I had lost the ability to write, I thought I was damaged.”

Susan said she slowly began to write small poems rather than her traditional prose, as she felt “poetry seemed to be the right way to go”.

“I was trying to work out where life would go,” she said.

“A few people said I should write about stroke, but I couldn’t because there are a lot of recovery stories out there and some can be quite cliched.

“I thought if I did write about my stroke, I would be stuck in that moment rather than moving forward.”

As she wrote from 2011 to 2015, Susan discovered the poems followed a storyline, from when she woke up in hospital, to moving into her new house and trying to recover.

“At that stage [when we moved houses] I was quite vulnerable, so I wrote my way to into the new place,” she said.

She chose the title Rupture to reflect the journeys she had taken through recovery.

“A rupture happens when someone has a trauma, such as a divorce, heart attack or stroke, but that just happens in a moment,” Susan said.

“What happens after is the rupture in your life, the rupture in yourself and your capabilities.

“Some people say the word ‘rupture’ is close to ‘rapture’ and I suppose there is a fine line between the beauty of things and when things go bad.”

Rupture will be launched on October 6 by poet Jen Reidy at Mount Ashby Estate Vineyard, Moss Vale, at 5.00pm.

To attend this event, RSVP to svacoffice@gmail.com.