You
already know Fleda Brown’s poetry, I hope. Maybe you attended one of her
readings at Dog Ears Books. Now we all have an opportunity to know the former
Poet Laureate of Delaware* (now a Traverse City resident) as a thoughtful memoir essayist. The pieces in this book,
originally published in Brown’s blog, face her diagnosis and life with cancer directly, from the only possible standpoint for the experience: personal and
subjective. Many also address what it means to live as a writer, with or without a life-threatening illness. In all of them, an honest, gifted woman looks for just the right language to convey her experience to others. Others with cancer. With aging parents. Other women. Other writers.
But you
don’t have to have cancer or be a writer to get a lot out of this book. Or to want to read it more than once. Or to share it with a friend.
Or all of the above.
My
Wobbly Bicycle: Meditations
on
Cancer and the Creative Life
by
Fleda Brown
Mission
Point Press
Paper,
197pp, $14.95
*Before correcting this post, I had given Vermont the honor of Fleda's poet laureateship. Apologies to both states. If I ever have the privilege of visiting, I'm sure I'll no longer mix them up.
*Before correcting this post, I had given Vermont the honor of Fleda's poet laureateship. Apologies to both states. If I ever have the privilege of visiting, I'm sure I'll no longer mix them up.
