{"product_id":"smart-carolyn-breath-takpb","title":"[09\/08\/26] Smart, Carolyn: Breath Taking","description":"\u003cp\u003eBook*hug Press, paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublication Date: September 8, 2026\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher Marketing:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn unflinching and tender recollection of illness, death, and grief, sensitively exploring the dynamic between the burden of care and the burden of dying.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCarolyn Smart's latest poetry collection offers a striking meditation on the death of her partner of nearly forty years. Structured in five distinct parts, this deeply moving book unfolds like a tragedy--each section like an act in a play, the individual poems key scenes in a shared life coming to an end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe language in \u003ci\u003eBreath Taking\u003c\/i\u003e is direct and exacting, with colloquial phrases that animate and complicate the emotional pressure of the work itself. Familiar references are scattered throughout--Gould Lake, Road 38--not as a device, but as indications of the everyday world that love, pain, and death inhabit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIntimate and exhaustive, this generous document doesn't lean on a belief in God or the afterlife, nor does nature's continuity offer an uncomplicated source of comfort. Instead, what is revealed is the unvarnished reality of love and loss--the arduous responsibilities, the fragile attempts at recovery, the wishful thinking that what is gone will one day return. \u003ci\u003eBreath Taking\u003c\/i\u003e is a profound, vital reflection on the end of a life, and on those who go on living.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45143459758103,"sku":"9781771669863","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0004\/6497\/7956\/files\/81NBCkAVQ5L._SL1500.jpg?v=1780616852","url":"https:\/\/open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com\/products\/smart-carolyn-breath-takpb","provider":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","version":"1.0","type":"link"}