March, Before Spring - Softcover

Mendel, Stephanie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0966843118 ISBN 13: 9780966843118

Publisher: O'Brien & Whitaker, Publishers, 1999

Synopsis

Stephanie Mendel’s poetry captures the devastation of losing a spouse, and ultimately offers comfort and hope to widows and widowers of making it through the intense grief of such a loss.  The book has been used in groups dealing with the loss of a spouse at Hospice of Marin and other organizations.

About this title

About the Author

Stephanie Mendel is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has lived most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area.  She and her late husband met in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and were married for 35 years.  They have two grown sons and a grandson.  Stephanie teaches writing privately, and her work has appeared in many literary journals as well as The Hospice of Marin News, The Stanford University Hospital Medical Staff Update, The Western Journal of Medicine, The Saturday Evening Post  and The Poet’s Companion, published by Norton in 1997.

From the Inside Flap

"I love this spare, lush, beautiful, aching book of poems.  An absolutely lovely collection, it blew me away, right into a woman's heart, hope, grief, and love."           -- Anne Lamott

"All art is a tract against death, a remainder that life is brief, fragile, unrepeatable.  These artful poems are Stephanie Mendel's tract for the living--praise pieces, prayers of witness and remembrance, quiet, brave and heartbreakingly real."            -- Dorianne Laux

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Small Deaths

The doctor tells you in a voice not shaking,
You have lung cancer and it s not fixable.
This is the most amazing thing
anyone has ever told us. We ask
a few questions. He answers,

Perhaps six months or less. He doesn t
know about pain. I don t say thank you
or even bye when we leave. We don t stop
for the new fuse for the rain gauge,
we get into bed and cry.

We tell ourselves we re lucky
it isn t a sudden death, like if
a plane went down. You say,
If I wear my new suspenders, I want
one side of my jacket to be open.

Afraid not many people
will come to the funeral,
you suggest door prizes.
I laugh like a teenager
we re not old enough for this.

Later, I lay my hand on your rib cage,
bargain with the fist-sized cancer,
try to soothe it by telling it
if it grows slowly, it can live longer,
but I know it s too greedy to care.

Edition details

• Publisher: O'Brien & Whitaker, Publishers
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0966843118
• ISBN 13: 9780966843118
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 48