Countdown

Here it is!

We've entered the countdown phase for delivery of my late daughter Laura Jeanne Morefield's poetry chapbook, The Warrior's Stance.

For those who've not been following my nearly two-year odyssey, here is a bit more information. There will be a book publication party in March. If you wish to be invited contact me as below.

Laura Jeanne Morefield’s The Warrior’s Stance

A lifelong poet, Laura Jeanne Morefield showed her work to only a few people, among them her husband, her mother, her sister-in-law and her best friend. When she was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer in 2008, Laura kept on writing. When it became apparent she was not going to survive, Laura extracted a promise from her mother, writer Charlene Baldridge, to collect and edit her post-diagnosis poetry and make a chapbook.

With its title taken from a line in one of the poems, “The Work at Hand,” the chapbook is titled The Warrior’s Stance.

A warrior keeps her back leg strong, connected

to the earth. She faces her hips forward.

She lifts hands and face skyward as

her front leg leans into the territory of the enemy

as far as, as long as, her breath will take her.

Laura’s poems are filled with a language that bespeaks love, humor, gratitude and courage.

Her assertiveness was apparent early: she writes about “inventing body-surfing” at age 8. Her love of nature, particularly birds, is evident when she writes: “I must be about my winged business today.” She sings along with cherry blossoms in the far reaches of the oncologist’s parking lot. Even though she blows bubbles instead of praying (“Selah”) and scoffs at miracle cures (“Another Day”), her faith shines through all the works, right down to the last handwritten poem, “Me Again,” in which she pulls out the begging bowl, asking God for enough time to see her nephew married.

Charlene Baldridge

Charb81@cox.net

619-296-8044