Overview

""Having terminal cancer has been a daily exercise in searching for and finding meaning, beauty, kindness and even hope amidst the brutality of a deadly diagnosis. Poetry helps me reflect on, process and share this experience."" -Karen Friedland

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9781950063536

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Reviews

""With grace and courage and style, Karen Friedland brings us along on her cancer journey; urging us to look at the world as she does, through eyes that see the joyful sparkling of life in every gratitude-wrapped moment. Whether she's walking her beloved dogs, or sitting in bed with pen and paper, she glories in being on this side of the sod. Indeed, these poems about dying are really poems about living. I miss her, but I am happier for having read them."" -Robin Stratton, author of Some Have Gone and Some Remain ""Some days, / the warmth- / every sensation- / is so beautiful . . . . I can hear Karen Friedland saying these words. We're driving in my car on a hot July day. The sun is strong and the road glimmers. I can see her, in my rearview mirror, as we chat about our cats and politics. As I read Karen's posthumous collection, Our Imperfect Bodies, I think of the grace and honesty she displayed, allowing us all on her journey, through her constellations of cancers. And though she rendered this to us in her poetry, she also traveled on the knife-edge of hope and terror. Her poems are wild and kind and funny; all words I'd used to describe this amazing poet. I don't want to get cocky / in my aliveness- she writes, and who can't relate to this? I will miss Karen Friedland, and feel so honored to have called her my friend, for my moments with her trapped in amber. I am grateful for Karen's poetry, for her words she left behind, too. / Little brightly colored shards, / breadcrumbs. We can follow her voice, with our imperfect bodies, we can hear her poetry."" -Jennifer Martelli, author of The Queen of Queens

Author Information

Once a nonprofit grant writer by trade, Karen had poems published in the Lily Poetry Review, Nixes Mate Review, One Art, and others. She was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her previous books were Places That Are Gone (Nixes Mate Books)and Tales from the Teacup Palace (Červená Barva Press). Karen lived in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston with herhusband, two dogs and a cat. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in November 2021, and died on April 14, 2024.

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