Who is The Broken Flower?

Filomena Denise Rocca, born December 15, 1999 as Theocracy James Rocca, is an artist from Pennsylvania. Originally from Lancaster, she moved to rural Dauphin county at the age of 3. She received a religious home-school education, focused largely on theology and church history, with other subjects being considered secondary. She developed a love of music at a young age, participating in religious and folk singing, and studying guitar, piano, and classical composition. A fascination with linguistics came soon after, studying Biblical Greek and Hebrew as a young teenager, and later Esperanto and several other languages to varying degrees of proficiency.

At the age of 18, she began writing poetry. While working in a window factory in her hometown, she scribbled rhymes on the stacks of paper detailing each order. Walking homeward during the wee hours of the morning, she repeated and refined her rhymes till she was satisfied. As she moved away from home, and later from town to town, she wrestled with the lasting aftermath of her religious trauma. Mental hospitals provided the setting for bursts of poetic creativity during her many short stays. In her early twenties, she began composing in popular styles, developing an affinity for Bossa Nova, among others.

This story is still being written. And I thank you for whatever part in it you play.

—Filomena