Overview

Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death is a poignant contemporary poetry collection revealing that ""for every corridor of grief there are as many rooms of sustaining light,"" said Gary Copeland Lilley, author of The Bushman's Medicine Show. Laura E. Garrard's vulnerable narratives capture indelible moments through which cancer patients struggle and overcome. Garrard seeks meaning in ""the narrow exception of movement against the current,"" in response to the shock of a terminal blood cancer diagnosis, multiple myeloma. On her shins, she asks God, ""What is a human without honor?"" Her vivid imagery of the Northwest natural world expresses her pain, joy and absolution. ""I am cleaved by lightning. / Bared of bark, my proud / Leaves, trimmed limbs. / Burned to minimal - / Survival instinct."" ""Garrard's poems are courageous compass-settings for navigating a place of balance and bodily, emotional and spiritual contending,"" said Tess Gallagher, recipient of the prestigious international Lifetime Achievement in Poetry from the Academy of Rome. ""I finished the book feeling greatly uplifted. Its cargo is a true teaching of how to live daily on the shifting edge of our own mortality and that of those we love."" Garrard's free-spoken style shows us a ""gracious woman"" who refuses to hand over her ""life, body and self-sufficiency"" to anyone or anything. Then, she softens to find the ""sweet spot of flow called letting go."" ""I push less, soothe with balm, / and soak pain in salty water / to lithe what has been burned."" The book's closing and Pushcart Prize-nominated, poem, ""Hugging Alder,"" speaks to the losses that we share in life on our way to death, including the changes we're observing in our environment. Garrard dispels stigmas associated with chronic illness, asserting, ""I may never win your cancer-free ribbon, yet my pages still turn."" We live more fully in the shadow of this book's confrontation with ableism. Holly J. Hughes, winner of an American Book Award for Passings, said, ""These vivid, sensory poems take us along as she swims in the wake of spotted dolphins, see messages in barn swallows at play, and listens to alders at the edge of the lake where she finds peace. In the end, we arrive at her epiphany with gratitude for her hard-earned wisdom: 'The closer we are to the glass door of death / The freer we are to cornerstone live.'"" ""Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death follows a strong and inquisitive woman in the ebb and flow of a cancer journey from grief to acceptance. Laura E. Garrard's beautiful chapbook will appeal to poetry lovers and health professionals, as well as to individuals challenged with health afflictions and their loved ones. Readers will want to savor and reread Garrard's words."" - Mary Ellen Talley, Mom Egg Review

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Reviews

Laura E. Garrard's poems are courageous compass-settings for navigating a place of balance and bodily, emotional and spiritual contending. She is fighting a life threatening cancer in language both nuanced and frontal. ""Living is precious / The trick is / Not wanting it too much / Not calling death closer."" I finished the book feeling greatly uplifted. Its cargo is a true teaching of how to live daily on the shifting edge of our own mortality and that of those we love. -Tess Gallagher, author of Is, Is Not and recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in Poetry from Fondazione Roma In her chapbook poetry collection, Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death, the first line of Laura E. Garrard's poem, ""Humbled,"" reads ""I am cleaved by lightning."" Garrard navigates a world of illness, the inherent fears of death that are overcome by an instinct for survival, the gripping complexities within the process of healing. The experiences of these poems by Laura E. Garrard reveal that for every corridor of grief there are as many rooms of sustaining light, and that is very human, that's being much alive. -Gary Copeland Lilley, poet and author of Raven on the Moaners' Bench and The Bushman's Medicine Show Kudos to Laura E. Garrard for writing honest poems that question the familiar trope of vanquishing cancer, asking: ""Why fight against / Death as if it were a foe?"" Instead, Garrard listens to her body with compassion, embarking on a journey to bring her life into balance and find that ""sweet spot of flow called letting go."" These vivid, sensory poems take us along as she swims in the wake of spotted dolphins, sees messages in barn swallows at play, and listens to alders at the edge of the lake where she finds peace. In the end, we arrive at her epiphany with gratitude for her hard-earned wisdom: ""The closer we are to the glass door of death / The freer we are to cornerstone live."" -Holly J. Hughes, author of Passings, winner of an American Book Award

Author Information

Poet and Pushcart Prize nominee Laura E. Garrard writes from the Olympic Peninsula. She holds a master's in journalism and worked in publishing before living in mountain towns. Through scholarships, she has studied with renowned instructors at the Port Townsend Writers Conference. Her work has appeared in TulipTree Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Amethyst Review, and others.

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