The Joshua Poems

"[W]e lose our children from the moment they are born." So writes Carolyn Light Bell in her intimate preface to The Joshua Poems, which bear out this sentiment. The opening piece depicts a child "squirm[ing] / fresh from [the] womb," and the closing depicts acceptance at his death ("We finally yield to the soil, soft as pears"). This book illustrates the complexity of parenthood, its inevitable relation to loss, the essential unknowability of other minds, and the grief we face as the people we love change through time. Readers will be enriched from having encountered this carefully crafted and downright gorgeous book.-John James, author, The Milk HoursCarolyn Light Bell's courageous collection tells of her youngest, gifted child, who fell "through the rungs/of [his] life." His loss came like "some strange package left at our front door/neither of us wanted to pick up." All who have suffered deep loss or been touched by suicide will want The Joshua Poems to be in their hands, their hearts.-Elizabeth Weir, poet, When Our world Was WholeIn exquisite, lyrical language, poet Carolyn Light Bell brings the reader into her daily struggle through the darkness of grief to live fully after her son Josh's suicide, "the nightmare of nightmares...an all the time thing that doesn't go away," yet she concludes with hope and understanding, where "grief and joy are borne as one." Each poem pierces the heart.--Meryll Levine Page, author, Jewish LuckThe Joshua Poems is a mother's book about life and death and the child we deliver from one place to the next, the space where they were, the life that continues even when parts of it end, the living and dying we do each day in remembrance and in love.-Kao Kalia Yang, author, The Late Homecomer, The Song PoetJoshua, the beloved son of the poet and namesake of this tender, brave collection of poems, is portrayed as a remarkable young man, whose mental illness led to suicide. Carolyn Light Bell's writing, as Whitman's in "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" emanates love and grief. Borrowing Bell's words from her book, these poems "lift and carry" those of us who've experienced grave loss, yet found "hope and courage" to continue living with grace.-Margaret Hasse, poet, Summoned and other collections