Poet Marcia Slatkin NY Reading and Book Signing

Marcia Slatkin reads from her new poetry collection

NOT YET: A Healing Journey Through
Alzheimer's Care-Giving

December 15, 2012, 2-4 PM

Village Books, 48 Broadway, Tivoli, NY12573

Published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press, Nacogdoches, Texas

CONTACT: Kimberly Verhines, sfapress@sfasu.edu or Marcia Slatkin, mslatkin@juno.com, 917 597 4253

NOT YET: A Healing Journey Through Alzheimer's Care-Giving plunges readers into the four years Ms. Slatkin spent as her mother’s care-giver. The view is intimate. We sit beside the mother bathing, taking meds, doing exercise at her senior center. But we also see the transformation of the author, as the possibility of healing old wounds through role reversal is illuminated, the child now a kind parent to the infirm elder. Many poems rejoice in a newly-found “peace of closeness” that can arise when one uses touch, warmth and humor during prolonged, intimate contact. A difficult situation rewards both care-giver and patient as past anger dissolves. In sensual language, Slatkin uses imagery and music to fashion richly textured, accessible vignettes. The tone combines unflinching, unsentimental honesty, and tenderness. Although there is frustration, confusion and forgetting, times of lucid humor reveal the warm, zany personality still intact beneath the mother’s dementia. NOT YET will console and give hope to those with family members diagnosed with dementia. Please come and be part of the discussion and the refreshments that will follow the reading! And please consider that the book will make an inexpensive, deeply meaningful gift for people you love who face this situation.

PRAISE FOR "NOT YET"

“You will both cry and laugh as you read these poems that respect the person within the patient; forgive the sins of the past; find within diminishment, wholeness; and feel ‘the peace of closeness’ in times of intimacy. every caregiver, every family member, every poet should read these poems. Those who do will be humbled and changed. ”
—Cortney Davis, Author, Body Flute

"Slatkin is, as both daughter and poet, affectionate, obstinate, persistent, and brave."
—Mindy Kronenberg, Editor, BookMarkQuarterly Review; Author, Dismantling the Playground

"With keen intelligence, with curiosity and flashes of humor, with an eye for sensual detail, Slatkin's work is unflinching, compassionate, moving. This is a powerful book."
—Carin Clevidence, author, The House on Salt Hay Road

"Honesty mixed with tenderness, a triumph over pathos."
—Claire Nichols White, editor, Oberon Poetry Review, author, The Death of the Orange Tree

"The poems are honest, raw, close to the heart. They will console and inspire you."
—Philip Levine, poetry editor, Chronogram Magazine

“The abundance of life and love is celebrated."
—Alice Elman, Professor of Humanities, Suffolk Community College, Long Island, NY

"Anthem for a generation, and a critical addition to the new literature of Alzheimer's Disease."
—Tom Lombardo, editor, After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events

Former teacher, farmer, care-giver, Marcia now plays cello, works for climate change mitigation, makes photo collages, and writes: poems, plays, fiction. Three of her one-acts will be read at Bard's Lifetime Learning Institute's intersession workshops, January 16th, 2013, 1:30 - 3:30, free of charge. Her collages/ photographs can be seen at the Tivoli Artist's Co-Op and at RHCAN, Red Hook. Her two daughters grown, she lives and cultivates many gardens with her long-time partner, Dan. See www.marciaslatkin.com for sample poems, photographs. Her poem “A Late Blessing” appeared in the anthology After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events, which presented 152 poems by 115 poets from 15 nations.