Published by Holy Cow! Press
Perfect Bound, 77 pages
5½ by 8½ inches 2018
ISBN# 978-0-9986010-3-8
$16.00
Praise for The Caregiver
In these fine narrative poems, Caroline Johnson dramatizes the sole of caregiver to aging parents. Each poem is like a Raymond Carver short story: plainspoken tales filled with bitter ironies, moments of surprising grace, and lots and lots of heart. The Caregiver shows how much can be done with essential tales told simply, how much intensity can hide below a plain surface. Johnson has written a terrific book – an essential one – about loss and about the love and resilience that sustains us.
Dr. Tony Barnstone – author of Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki
Heartbreaking and unforgettable, these poems confront the complex and difficult task of caregiving that requires control moderated with compassion. In unsparing language leavened with affection, Johnson speaks to those with aging parents as well as anyone facing illness or aging. An important book that takes on painful aspects with wisdom and a good heart.
John Colby – author of Carnival and Ribcage
In these poignant and unflinching poems poet Caroline Johnson traces her father’s decline with Multiple system Atrophy and her mother’s descent into dementia with tenderness, affection, and respect. The Caregiver offers a moving account of the work of living with chronic illness for both her parents and herself, remembering who they were, acknowledging the grief and defeat the caregiver often encounters, showing us how we, too, could accompany our own loved ones with a raft of old movies and honesty, patience, and humanity.
Robin Chapman – author of Six True Things
With rare clarity, this book reveals the emotional and physical textures of caring for loved ones through a chronic illness. Caroline Johnson’s deft insights, refreshing authenticity, and wisdom borne of experience converge to invite readers into her world. There, they may feel validated, learn, grow, and find joy in the hard, hard work of caring. Whether you provide care to a family member or to those you meet in your professional work, this book is an uncommon gem. I will return to it often.
Allan Hugh Cole, Jr. – author of Good Mourning: Getting Through Your Grief
About Caroline Johnson
Caroline Johnson has two poetry chapbooks, Where the Street Ends and My Mother’s Artwork, and more than 100 poems in print. A nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, she has won numerous state and national poetry awards, including the 2012 Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row Poetry Contest. Her poetry or short stories have appeared in Lunch Ticket, Rambunctious Review, Origins Journal, The Quotable, Encore, and many other journals. She is currently the president of Poets and Patrons of Chicago and has led poetry workshops for veterans and others in the Chicago area. An English teacher for 20 years, she now works as a community college academic advisor.
Contents
Sunsets
Crossing
Life’s Melody
Shapeshifting
Becoming Erudite
Your Last Chance
Dangerous Driving
James
A Father’s Invitation: A Sestina
At the Dentist
Bones
Flying
Parkinson’s Flight
Gliding
The Window
Feeding Yourself
The Caregiver
A Good Day
The Last Bed
MSA
Hospice
Shut-Ins
Triptych in Color
Coyote
Skiing
Pain
Eating Lobster
Glasses
Alzheimer’s Dream
Donut Holes
Beads
Wandering
Borders
Taking Flight
A Mother’s Love
Three Words
The Longest Good-Bye
Conjuring
What Got Him Here
This Old Soldier
Changing Lanes
Memorium
A Widower’s Wish
Rewind
Navigare Vivere Est
Ode to My Father’s Nursing Home
Exile
The Sneeze
Awake in the Woods
The Gallery
Der Schrei
Sample Poems
Rewind
Undo a kiss
move backwards
disentangle yourself
pause stand up
turn left and walk
south towards the door
say good-night
to the evening sun
lace up your ice skates
move one foot
glide into night as if
your life depended
on it until you waltz
until you hug yourself
until you find where
you first were born
in the wrinkled arms
of your father’s embrace
Wandering
-with a line borrowed from Joyce Carol Oates
You open the door and creak outside,
grabbing the frayed edges of your
pink flannel nightgown, stepping hesitantly
in stockinged feet, your legs scaly and dry,
your eyes open and wide.
Where are you going an where have you been?
“I’m going home,” you say confidently, in a cloud
of delusion, as you step over yesterday’s daffodils,
and walk away from the moon.
Your hair is tousled. The night air brushes your eyes.
Frazzled, curious, they are broken trees, twigs on fire,
now burnt shards. They peer out onto the surprise
of a familiar neighborhood that has changed-
a driveway cracked and splintered, houses
with brick siding, black mailboxes perfectly
propped like rows of coffins in the blue moonlight.
Where are you going and where have you been?
Electrical energy explodes in the glow
like destroyed synapses. An airplane passes
above, the stars are fixed as you stumble
house to house, shying into each driveway.
“I’m going home,” you say less confidently,
your smile a delirious holiday, your face pale
from the celestial light. You turn back and walk
inside to the house you have always known-
a palace called home, now strange and foreign.
Your caregiver locks the door. You finally take to sleep.
Your braid tired to the core, your body secret and sore.
While late into the night your family gathers to remember
how things used to be, when life was not a mystery.
Where are you going and where have you been?
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