Newly Released: Healing Poetry for Cancer Patients and Survivors, Poets and Physicians
robynhuntpoetry.com
MY STORY
Among her former lives, Robyn Hunt owned a small bookstore in the San Francisco Bay Area and ran printing presses with a print and design collective, producing “bread and butter” jobs to enable the creation of poetry books and broadsides. While on the West Coast, she read poems with a cadre of smart misfits on the steps of city hall and in North Beach drinking establishments. She was arrested at least once protesting at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. She attended San Francisco State University, studying Creative Writing in the ‘70s during the early birth pangs of slam and language poetry. Returning more than 30 years ago to her native Santa Fe, she occupied a New Mexico legislative press box as reporter and hosted ongoing readings and other literary events in a bookstore on the Old Santa Fe Trail.
Her inaugural collection of poems, The Shape of Caught Water, was released in 2013 and selected for award by the New Mexico Press Women’s 2014 Poetry Division competition. Other writing includes a one act play, In Possibility: An Imaginary Correspondence, co-authored with Evangeline Brown and produced by Theaterwork in Santa Fe. Her work is also visible on her blog, As Mourning Doves Persist, and in various journals. She lives today with her husband in Santa Fe where she works as a development and communications director for a non-profit social services agency.
MY BOOKS
The Fiction of Stillness
These poems evoke the author's focus on finding respite during breast cancer treatment and recovery - the physical touchstones carried into the chemo ward, the calming touch of her daughter, cherry juice to offset the loss of taste, and an ongoing retreat to a nearby porch. This dialogue with cancer seeks to dispel fear and offer remedy, including the promise of milagros, the body's visible and invisible medical tattoos, and a renewed understanding of stillness and healing.
The Shape of Caught Water
In this human family, a man digs a hole in his backyard for a swimming pool. Another inks his lover's name on his knuckles. A wife sings to her husband who does not hear her. The inhabitants learn a language that lifts beyond the bills being paid, drunk on the tastes they had nearly forgotten.
This collection is available for sale directly from the author: robyn.covelli@icloud.com
Thanks to the editor and designer at Saddle Road Press for the exceptional production of this book.
NEXT EVENTS
Poetry Readings & Book Launch
WHEN
Sunday, October 13, 2024, 4:30PM
WHERE
Collected Works Bookstore, 202 Galisteo Street, Santa Fe, Ph 505.988.4226
WHAT
The Fiction of Stillness' inaugural Santa Fe Book Launch! In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Day. Reading and conversation with fellow breast cancer survivor and poet, Dr. Melina Martinez, contributor to Write Until You Cry.
Please visit the Collected Works Event calendar for a link to live stream the reading if you are unable to attend in person. A portion of the proceeds of day's sales will be donated to breast cancer treatment.
WHEN
Sunday, October 27, 2024, 4:30PM
WHERE
Garcia Street Books, 376 Garcia Street, Santa Fe, Ph 505.986.0151
WHAT
Reading from new books with Sarah Wolbach, author of Eclipse, Finishing Line Press
FROM THE POET
Mom Egg Review recently included a wonderful review of The Fiction of Stillness. Here is an excerpt.
The poet commands the page. The voice in each poem tears at the heartstrings, revealing the process of navigating chemo, radiation, and hair loss as in “Bling” and “Radiation Burn.” The words also beckon the readers into the intricate struggles of the disease beyond the physical such as family issues. In “Poem in Which I Consider Telling My Daughter That I Have Cancer Again,” the speaker contemplates sharing with her daughter that her cancer has returned “But what would be accomplished//in sharing this revived diagnosis” (23), revealing how cancer affects not only the patient but the family unit as well. The reader can sense the powerful bond of the mother/daughter relationship in this poem as well as throughout the collection.
Read the full review here. To read more from Mom Egg Review, a literary journal on mothers, mothering, and motherhood, select this link.
Excerpt from The Fiction of Stillness
Lightweigtht Valuables after George Oppen
If I cut my hair,
approaching
chemotherapy,
let's refer to it as
fruit-tree blossom
scatter - anticipatory
lightweight
valuables
cautiously
chosen
windy decision-
making ahead