[Critique Group 1] Sally's April submission

[Sally Rosenthal]

INTRODUCTION

 

 

Anyone who reads this book needs to know two things:  I am a private person
who did not write any of the poems and prose included for wide publication,
and this is a book I never wanted to write.  Still, here we are, you and I,
sharing my emotions and memories. 

Initially, I wrote most of the poems as a member of a critique group that
met monthly and asa member of the larger writers' online group comprised of
people with disabilities, Behind Our Eyes.  Beyond the members of Behind Our
Eyes, I gave a few poems to friends.  That was as far as I was willing to
go.  While my colleagues were busy with publishing work in journals and as
books, I was content to hand a poem, literally or metaphorically, to another
reader in the hope she or he might find help, empathy, or solace  It was my
idea of the literary equivalent of sitting at my kitchen table with that
friend as we shared cups of tea and whatever my work brought to the surface.
.  

 

However, several friends urged me to compile a collection to reach a wider
audience.   While the material included here is drawn from my own life and
experiences, I began to realize that many individuals in late middle age or
old age were also struggling with issues such as the deaths of spouses and
parents, aging bodies, illness, caregiving, and mapping ways forward into
unknown territory alone or in very changed circumstances.

 

While I wrote many of the poems as a way to unearth and process my
reactions, it wasn't until I viewed them as a whole that I saw that the
majority of the pieces were about dearly loved people and animals who had
died.  As I re-read my words, I would have given almost anything to trade
the words for another chance for more time with the people and animals I had
lost.  Sadly, life doesn't give any of us that option.  So, I decided to
keep their memories alive through words and to send those words wherever
this book might take them.  After a year of COVID lockdown, I believe we all
walk with some degree of sadness and bewilderment as we seek to live with
loss.  Although I have never believed in closure, I do think that, after
loss and change, we are, at our core, resilient human beings who can come
out of the shadow of sorrow and choose to take small steps at first and then
larger ones into a future, one that is quite different but, nonetheless,
beckoning.

 

 

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