Or she might attribute her life to her mother’s intuition: After the attack, her mother sensed something was wrong and rushed home, where she found her daughter dead on the floor and called for help.
For a while, Rose said, it seemed psychologically important to her to know exactly how she survived, but she concluded she might never get a clear answer.
“I’m just grateful that somehow I wasn’t completely alone,” she said.
After months of treatment, Rose regained her ability to speak. Now 34, she is releasing a small collection of poems this month, which she dedicated to her mother, who “took my life twice.” Titled “Post-Traumatic Poems,” the book details life in an abusive relationship and as a victim of domestic violence.
“I have a background in English and writing, and I was an avid pursuer of poetry in undergrad, so it felt natural to me to write something that didn’t make sense in a form that doesn’t necessarily have rules like poetry,” Rose said. “It was very therapeutic.”
Rose earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Mary Washington in 2011 and her Master of Arts in Children’s Literature shortly thereafter from Hollins University. Since then, she has taught a wide range of students in classes from kindergarten, entry-level freshman programs, advanced classes, and dual enrollment language and literature. In 2022, she began her current role as an adjunct professor of English, Education, and Media & Communications at Shenandoah University in Winchester.
She said she felt like being a teacher was her “ultimate purpose on this earth,” and when she returned to work as a public school teacher after the attack, she said she felt as if she had gained a new superpower.
“I was able to hear the trauma of my students that I hadn’t been able to hear before,” she said.
That realization led her to Virginia Tech, where she is currently enrolled in the Individualized Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program, a program launched in 2015 aimed at helping students achieve their specialized academic and professional goals.
Assistant professor of sociology Katalin Parti was a member of Rose’s doctoral committee and encouraged her to publish poetry.
“Mackenzie Rose’s collection of poems brings to life the unspeakable pain, revealing the hidden wounds of domestic violence,” Patti said. “With words that encompass both grief and hope, she creates a sanctuary where healing can begin and resilience can be cultivated.”
Rose’s program focuses on trauma-informed storytelling and education. Inspired by her Appalachian background and the folk tales she heard growing up in Winchester, Rose says she is interested in why people tell stories and why they need them. Storytelling can be a “protective factor” for individuals, she says.
“Writing poetry was something I used as a means of survival after a domestic violence incident,” she said. “So I wanted to find the roots of that. When did it start?”
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