As human beings, we often search for ways to describe ourselves: our emotions, our thoughts, our deepest feelings, and fears. We want to put words to our pain, but we don't know how. The Human Side gives us those words. It gives us the connections we so desperately seek—lets us know we are not alone. Through free verse, traditional, and haibun poetry, we can see intimate reflections of ourselves or people we love as we deal with the complex yet common human struggles of addiction, grief, loneliness, loss, abuse, disease, homelessness, toxic relationships, or trauma. But The Human Side also gives us something else—hope. Human beings have an incredible capacity to survive, to overcome, to achieve what others told us we never could. And it's that spirit that will make us want to read this book again and again.