In the Extra Years

In the Extra Years by Roger Sippl is a poetry book. It's about how I spent the rest of my life after I survived, at age nineteen, Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a type of cancer that, at the time, only gave me a twenty percent chance of living further. This book is poetry. Therefore, it doesn't detail everything I did. Many events in my past just don't make good poetry.

I took three companies public, and although it got me the Golden Hat Trick Award from my underwriter, Cristina Morgan, all that business stuff just isn't very lyrical, although I suppose someday I should try to make it so. But there is a little factoid that does make for a good story, if not a poem. Once, for a week-long party with my friends in the Caribbean, I chartered a cruise ship.

It only had 50 staterooms, so it was a small cruise ship, as cruise ships go. Chartering it was motivated by the desire, when I thought I was dying, to just go to the beach with my friends. When I thought I was going to lose them all, all at once, that was my number one thought. Years after my cancer treatment I had some success in the software business and I realized I never took that time to hang out with my friends on a sunny day in the sand. After the third IPO I decided I was probably at the peak of things, so I declared it to be "The Year of Roger" and took my friends on this trip "to the beach" - which became "The Year of Roger Cruise" complete with logowear, fireworks one night, a toga party another, and the inevitable martini-tasting contest with talent show put on completely by my guests.

I did things like that in the extra years. Perhaps all my life I was that way in my mind, but after cancer I lived it - too confident, impulsive and too willing to forget about the consequences of failure. Cancer made me more sure that nothing good was going to happen for me unless I made it happen, and further, bad things were definitely going to happen, no matter what, so I better enjoy my life right now before it's too late.

Whether you call it a good attitude or a bad attitude, it made for a wonderful life. In my next book I'll fill in the blanks between the poems with prose, explain what was going on when I wrote each poem, and what I meant to say by writing it, to the extent I know. But for now, I'll leave you with just the poems, and you'll have the luxury of exactly your own interpretation.

Please let me know any thoughts you have on any of the poems, or the whole collection, at roger@sipmac.com.

While a junior pre-med, at the age of nineteen, Roger Sippl was diagnosed with late stage Hodgkin's Lymphoma. This changed everything. However, after 13 months of radiation therapy, surgery and chemotherapy, Sippl has lived relapse-free for the last 45 years. He started five companies, taking three of them public. He married and he raised three children. These poems are the stories of those "extra years." Sippl studied creative writing at UC Irvine, UC Berkeley and Stanford Continuing Studies. He's been published in a few dozen literary journals and anthologies, including the Ocean State Review and the Bacopa Literary Review. www.rogersippl.com

Elizabeth Ann Atkins is Co-Creator of Two Sisters Writing & Publishing, an Emmy Award nominated TV show host, a journalist, book coach, inspirational speaker, certified meditation teacher, a fitness enthusiast, and author of 33 books. Elizabeth has a master's degree in Journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in English Literature from the University of Michigan. She loves to help people cultivate their book ideas into a published format to share with readers everywhere! Her memoir-God's Answer Is Know: Lessons From a Spiritual Life-chronicles her life story and shares her spiritual awakening, along with tools anyone can use to deepen their connection to the Divine and live a more joyous, healthy, peaceful, prosperous, and influential life. Elizabeth co-hosts the Emmy Award nominated MI Healthy Mind, a weekly TV show that aims to shatter stigmas around mental illness and addiction. All episodes are at MIHealthyMind.com The Oprah Winfrey Show featured Elizabeth as a guest to celebrate her 100-pound weight loss and lifestyle as a health and fitness enthusiast. Elizabeth and her sister Catherine M. Greenspan co-created Two Sisters Writing & Publishing, which: publishes their books; provides ghostwriting, publishing, and book coaching services; and hosts monthly writing contests and the Two Sisters Writing Club; and showcases their blog, A Tale of Two Sisters. They are launching the Two Sisters Writing & Publishing Virtual Speakers Agency in Fall of 2020 to enable their speakers to share messages of Diversity & Inclusion and other Inspiration to audiences around the world. The Two Sisters also teach people how to unleash their power through meditation and a writing technique Elizabeth invented and trademarked called PowerJournal that they created and share in workbooks. Elizabeth and Catherine have written and published dozens of books, including their mother's book, The Triumph of Rosemary: A Memoir, by Judge Marylin E. Atkins. Elizabeth has a master's degree in Journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in English Literature from the University of Michigan. She studied French at Collège de Rivière-du-Loupe in Québec, Canada. Elizabeth is an inspiring speaker who recites her autobiographical poem, White Chocolate, and has spoken at Columbia University, the University of Michigan, GM's World Diversity Day, Gannett, DaimlerChrysler, 100 Black Men of America, the NAACP, Beaumont Hospital, PowerNetworking, Comerica Bank, the National Association of Black Journalists, and the American Library Association. She has taught writing at Wayne State University, Oakland University, Wayne County Community College District, and at national conferences. As an actress, Elizabeth plays a major role in the feature-length film Anything Is Possible, nominated for "Best Foreign Film" by the Nollywood and African Film Critics Association. She composed an original screenplay, Redemption, a gritty drama about a Detroit gangster and a writer. And Elizabeth plays a 1950s journalist in the international shipwreck drama, The Andrea Doria: Are The Passengers Saved? A former Fox 2 Detroit News writer, she has been a guest on Montel, NPR, Good Morning America Sunday, The CBS Evening News, several BET programs, and other national TV shows. After writing her master's thesis about mixed-race Americans, her work appeared in The New York Times. Her articles have also been published in The San Diego Tribune, Essence, Ebony, HOUR Detroit, HOUR Home, HOUR Bride, BET.com, Ms., BLAC Detroit, and The Detroit News, where her articles on race were nominated for The Pulitzer Prize. She also wrote a biography for the Presidential Medal of Freedom tribute for Rosa Parks.