Joan Cusack Handler

Good morning, everyone.  It’s hard to believe daylight savings time is about to end here in the Northeastern U.S., where the trees are splendidly scarlet and gold and poetry almost can’t compete.

Our poet today has a name that is already familiar to many of you who have purchased and read the lovely books produced under one of the imprints of CavanKerry Press since its founding in 2000 by Joan Cusack Handler and Florenz Eisman.

Joan herself is a poet and memoirist whose poems have been widely published in  literary journals, including several in Psychoanalytic Perspective, and have received The Sampler Award from Boston Review and five Pushcart nominations. She has four published collections: Confessions of Joan the Tall, a prose memoir, and three poetry collections: GlOrious, The Red Canoe: Love in Its Making and, most recently, Orphans, a verse memoir that presents three stories spoken in three voices (her mother’s, father’s and her own) in three different forms.

Informing all of her work, undoubtedly, are insights derived from the fact that she is a psychologist in clinical practice.

I’m happy that she has shared with us the three poems below, all from her newest book, Orphans.

                            –Irene Wills
                               Poetry Editor

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