The Present Abandoned by Harriet Shenkman

“…these are poems that arise from necessity, that are informed by a fierce intelligence and a willingness to look at everything exactly as it is, and then to filter that through music and wit and a realistic and also open-to-the-emotional lens. It’s the kind of poetry that makes me feel like my life is better for having read it, that someone has handed me a way to live through life’s eventualities. “

–Laura Kasischke, National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, acclaimed poet and author of Where Now, New and Selected Poems.

“Here in these pages, the steady gaze of the unconditional. Here, jazz, Modigliani, cupcakes, Greenwich Village, and a room in a dementia unit are the swirls inside a hamsa. The hamsa—the hand of a wife and a lifetime of memory. The Present Abandoned is fearless in its exploration of what it means to love: “We may have to go down/our separate paths and not be terrified.”

–Tamra Carraher, editor of Alexandria Quarterly

“In this finely-honed, poetic journey through the heart of love and dementia, Harriet Shenkman shares naked truths with bravery, humor, frustration and graceful acceptance.”

–Ellaraine Lockie, award-winning poet, LILIPOH Poetry Editor