Widows' Handbook

Description

Widows convey their feelings and survival strategies in this compelling anthology The Widows' Handbook is the first anthology of poems by contemporary widows, many of whom have written their way out of solitude and despair, distilling their strongest feelings into poetry or memoir. This stirring collection celebrates the strategies widows learn and the resources they muster to deal with people, living space, possessions, social life, and especially themselves, once shock has turned to the realization that nothing will ever be the same. As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says in her foreword, losing one's partner is "a loss like no other."The Widows' Handbook is a collection of poetry from 87 American women of all ages, legally married or not, straight and gay, whose partners or spouses have died. Some of the poets are already published widely-including more than a dozen prizewinners, four Pushcart nominees, and two regional poets laureate. Others are not as well known, and some appear in print for the first time here. With courage and wry humor, these women encounter insidious depression, poignant memories, bureaucratic nonsense, unfamiliar hardware, well-intentioned but thoughtless remarks, demanding work, spiritual revelation, and unexpected lust, navigating new relationships in the uncertain legacy of sexual liberation. They write frankly about being paralyzed and about going forward. Their poems are honest, beautiful, and accessible.Only poetry can speak such difficult truths and incite such intense empathy. While both men and women understand the bewilderment, solitude, and change of status thrust upon the widowed, women suffer a particular social demotion and isolation. Anyone who has lost a loved one or is involved in helping the bereaved will be able to relate to the experiences conveyed in The Widows' Handbook.

Sujets

• USA
• Poetry
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 14 février 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612778587
• Langue: English

Extrait

When a partner dies, we begin a long journey down a path we d rather not take, and we may imagine that life could never be bearable again. The poems in this handbook offer much more than guidance or comfort. Their searing honesty and vivid depictions of resilience offer us invaluable reassurance that our grieving, however painful, will not destroy our capacity to live with meaning-and even joy.
- JUDYNORSIGIAN
Executive Director of Our Bodies, Ourselves and cofounder, Boston Women s Health Collective
I wish this collection had been available when I was a new widow. What a spectacular group of women this is! If they were my circle of friends or therapy group, I would have gone to every meeting. Their reactions and experiences as widows are varied, but each woman brings her own special intelligence to mourning, managing alone, and making a new life. Poetry makes those experiences immediately, emotionally accessible.
-JACQUELINE M. S. WINTERKORN
M.D., Ph.D., Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology; Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology in Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College; Attending Ophthalmologist, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
The Widows Handbook is a powerful emotional guide for the bereaved, organized by the evolving experiences of 87 women. But it s also far more-a testament to the redemptive power of poetry even in the darkest hours of life, offering proof that when we put love and art together, life can face death on equal-or better-terms.
-DANIEL MENAKER
former Executive Editor-in-Chief at Random House Publishing Group, former fiction editor at The New Yorker, and author of A Good Talk and My Mistake
A beautiful collection of poetry written by women experiencing one of the most traumatic events in their lives. There is something in this book for every widow, regardless of where she is in her loss, from early in bereavement through the process of rebuilding. Truly an excellent resource that readers can go back to over and over again for support and guidance.
-ELLEN KAMP
President and cofounder, The W Connection: Widows Helping Widows Rebuild Their Lives
The Widows Handbook
Literature and Medicine
M ICHAEL B LACKIE , E DITOR
C AROL D ONLEY AND M ARTIN K OHN , F OUNDING E DITORS
1 Literature and Aging: An Anthology
EDITED BY MARTIN KOHN, CAROL DONLEY, AND DELESE WEAR
2 The Tyranny of the Normal: An Anthology
EDITED BY CAROL DONLEY AND SHERYL BUCKLEY
3 What s Normal? Narratives of Mental and Emotional Disorders
EDITED BY CAROL DONLEY AND SHERYL BUCKLEY
4 Recognitions: Doctors and Their Stories
EDITED BY CAROL DONLEY AND MARTIN KOHN
5 Chekhov s Doctors: A Collection of Chekhov s Medical Tales
EDITED BY JACK COULEHAN
6 Tenderly Lift Me: Nurses Honored, Celebrated, and Remembered
BY JEANNE BRYNER
7 The Poetry of Nursing: Poems and Commentaries of Leading Nurse-Poets
EDITED BY JUDY SCHAEFER
8 Our Human Hearts: A Medical and Cultural Journey
BY ALBERT HOWARD CARTER III
9 Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers
BY JAY BARUCH
10 Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies
EDITED BY SAYANTANI DASGUPTA AND MARSHA HURST
11 Wider than the Sky: Essays and Meditations on the Healing Power of Emily Dickinson
EDITED BY CINDY MACKENZIE AND BARBARA DANA
12 Lisa s Story: The Other Shoe
BY TOM BATIUK
13 Bodies and Barriers: Dramas of Dis-Ease
EDITED BY ANGELA BELLI
14 The Spirit of the Place: A Novel
BY SAMUEL SHEM
15 Return to The House of God: Medical Resident Education 1978-2008
EDITED BY MARTIN KOHN AND CAROL DONLEY
16 The Heart s Truth: Essays on the Art of Nursing
BY CORTNEY DAVIS
17 Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer s Disease
EDITED BY HOLLY J. HUGHES
18 The Country Doctor Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Reader
EDITED BY THERESE ZINK
19 The Widows Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival
EDITED BY JACQUELINE LAPIDUS AND LISE MENN
The Widows Handbook

Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival

Edited by Jacqueline Lapidus and Lise Menn

Foreword by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The Kent State University Press
KENT, OHIO
2014 by Jacqueline Lapidus and Lise Menn
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2013031960
ISBN 978-1-60635-204-5
Manufactured in the United States of America
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
The Widows Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival / edited by Jacqueline
Lapidus and Lise Menn ; foreword by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
pages cm. -
ISBN 978-1-60635-204-5 (softcover)
1. American poetry-Women authors. 2. Loss (Psychology).
3. Grief-Poetry. 4. Widows writings. I. Lapidus, Jacqueline, editor of compilation.
II. Menn, Lise, editor of compilation.
ps589.w48 2014
8ll.oo8 o9287-dc23
2013031960
18 17 16 15 14 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword
RUTH BADER GINSBURG
Introduction
JACQUELINE LAPIDUS LISE MENN
Widows
JACQUELINE LAPIDUS
PART I: BEREFT, MOURNING
Cross-Country Lines
JANE HAYMAN
Afterword
JANE HAYMAN
Vigil
PATRICIA WELLINGHAM-JONES
Falling
MAUREEN TOLMAN FLANNERY
Threshold
ANN SINCLAIR
Ironing at Dawn
COOPER GALLEGOS
Widow Mother
LUCIA MAY
I Love the Vet
RUTH S. ROTHSTEIN
Cemetery Haiku
RUTH S. ROTHSTEIN
Is He Saved?
CAROLYN STEPHENS
Paradise
TESS GALLAGHER
Wake
TESS GALLAGHER
The Idea of Skin
KATHERINE J. WILLIAMS
Salvage
JESSICA DE KONINCK
The Golem
JESSICA DE KONINCK
Cindered
P. C. MOOREHEAD
Almost a Full Moon
CHRISTINE SILVERSTEIN
Solving an Astronomy Problem
LISE MENN
March Ninth
LISE MENN
Natural Disaster
JACQUELINE LAPIDUS
What Happened After
JACQUELINE LAPIDUS
Widow s Litany
ROSALIND KALIDEN
Widow Laments at the Ice Gate
HELEN RUGGIERI
Too Much Life
IRIS LITT
In the Rain
PATRICIA L. GOODMAN
Valentine s Day
ANNE CAIRNS FEDERLEIN
My Husband s Bones
JOANNE SELTZER
Learn to Love the Trees
ANN MCGOVERN
Remorse
ELLEN PECKHAM
i am sure
CAROLYN STEPHENS
Bereaved
KATHARYN HOWD MACHAN
This product is licensed to Liz and Paul von Transehe
ELIZABETH VON TRANSEHE
Boats
DIANA O HEHIR
Thirty Years
DIANA O HEHIR
The Widow of Few Tears
BARBARA L. GREENBERG
Some Kind of Widow
BONNIE LOVELL
With friends like these ..
JACQUELINE LAPIDUS
To My Well-Meaning Friend
RUTH S. ROTHSTEIN
Ashes
KRISTINE SHOREY
The Widow Takes Delivery of His Ashes on Beacon Hill
GAIL GILLILAND
don t
SEREN FARGO
Refractory
CAROL TUFTS
Counterpoise
CAROL TUFTS
Cremains
CAROL TUFTS
the sun holds no sway
ELIZABETH PAGE ROBERTS
How Could I
PATRICIA SAVAGE
Wonderland
GAIL BRAUNE COMORAT
Do You See What I See?
CHARLOTTE COX
When one door closes
M
Shoes brought me to this place
M
Mourning
JACQUELINE LAPIDUS
Grief Becomes Me
DONNA HILBERT
Lesson
DONNA HILBERT
Secret Society
ALISON KEELER CARRILLO
A Widow Learns
LENORE MCCOMAS COBERLY
PART II: MEMORIES, GHOSTS, DREAMS
Memorial Day
CHRISTINE SILVERSTEIN
Poignant
JUDY BEBELAAR
Snapshot
BARBARA BALD
Memory Foam
PAT PARNELL
Flashback
PHYLLIS WAX
Departing
PATRICIA SAVAGE
death anniversary
SEREN FARGO
spring cleaning
SEREN FARGO
Feeling the Hollowness in My Chest
MARCI MADARY
I Want to Ask You
JESSICA DE KONINCK
Pillow Talk
JESSICA DE KONINCK
Come Saturday Morning
REBECCA SCHENCK
Phantom Limb
LAURA MANUELIDIS
Chora
LAURA MANUELIDIS
Until
LAURA MANUELIDIS
January 2007
JACQUELINE KUDLER
Old Woman Dreams
PATRICIA FARGNOLI
Who Will Not Be Home
ARIEL
Ghost Dream
DONNA WAIDTLOW
Waking the Dead
JILL JACKSON
Left Behind
BARBARA J. COLLIGNON
Shaky All Day
PATRICIA WELLINGHAM-JONES
Circumflex
NATASHA SAJE
Bureau
HOLLY ZEEB
Cold Tea
HOLLY ZEEB
Receipt: 11/07/09
HOLLY ZEEB
Ghost of Prescott Park
BARBARA BALD
Somewhere
JANE HAYMAN
Post-Mortem
JANE HAYMAN
The Acropolis Diner
HEATHER CANDELS
Memorial Candle
FLORENCE GRENDE
Those Days
MARY OLIVER
East Avenue Gulf
MARILYN BATES
Gone
ANN MCGOVERN
The Weight
ANN MCGOVERN
Maybe You Are Here
ANN MCGOVERN
Literal
DIANA O HEHIR
Why Can t I Dream About Him?
DIANA O HEHIR
Crazy Menu
TESS GALLAGHER
Ring
TESS GALLAGHER
Deaf Poem
TESS GALLAGHER
Dream Doughnuts
TESS GALLAGHER
Deshacer
DONNA HILBERT
The Wild Things
T. J. BANKS
Waking
MAREAN JORDAN
October 26, 1991: Outside Saratoga Springs
SANDRA M. GILBERT
November 26, 1992: Thanksgiving at the Sea Ranch, Contemplating Metempsychosis
SANDRA M. GILBERT
February 11,1994: Berkeley, Anniversary Waltz Again
SANDRA M. GILBERT
Apart
ALINE SOULES
Ours
LENORE MCCOMAS COBERLY
As the Crow Flies
REGINA MURRAY BRAULT
Ghosts I Have Met
MARIANNE BETTERLY
Honey Bees
MARIANNE BETTERLY
Light bulbs
MARIANNE BETTERLY
None, I think
LISE MENN
Alleyway
LISE MENN
Loving with Sinatra
CONNIE FISHER
I am prostrate, listening
ELIZABETH PAGE ROBERTS
PART III: COPING (MORE OR LESS)
My universe has changed
PHYLLIS WAX
No One Knows
ELIZABETH VON TRANSEHE
How are you?
CHRISTINE SILVERSTEIN
Widow, Falling
PAMELA MANCHE PEARCE
The Machines
JACQUELINE KUDLER
Managing
JACQUELINE KUDLER
Peninsula
DONNA HILBERT
In Quintana Roo
DONNA HILBERT
Dear one,
MAREAN JORDAN
Farewell to Sorrow
MAREAN JORDAN
Widow s Lament
ROSALIND KALIDEN
Prayer Shawl
ARIEL
How I Carry You
ARIEL
No Answer, No Message
CHARLOTTE COX
Double Sinks
ROSELEE BLOOSTON
Eleven Months
PATRICIA L. GOODMAN
In the Woods
PATRICIA L. GOODMAN
Ties
SUSANNE BRAHAM
Widow s Daughter
SUSANNE BRAHAM
Widowed, Turning Sixty
SUSANNE BRAHAM
A Christmas Trilogy
NANCY H. WOMACK
Curios
REGINA MURRAY BRAULT
How to Get Around It
REGINA MURRAY BRAULT
The Sisterhood
REGINA MURRAY BRAULT
Poem in Praise of My Husband (Portsmouth)
TAMMI J. TRUAX
Acceptance
TAMM