{"product_id":"the-blessing-a-memoir-by-gregory-orr","title":"Orr, Gregory: The Blessing: A Memoir","description":"\u003cp\u003eMilkweed Editions, paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublication Date: August 13, 2019\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher Marketing: \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHailed on its original publication as \"eloquent testimony to the engaging power of art in a man's life\" (\u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/em\u003e), this deeply moving memoir, long out of print, is reissued with an illuminating new afterword.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen acclaimed poet Gregory Orr was twelve years old, he shot and killed his brother in a hunting accident. From the immediate aftermath--a period of shock, sadness, and isolation--it quickly became clear that support and guidance would not be coming from his distant mother. Nor would it come from his father, a philandering country doctor addicted to amphetamines. Left to his own devices, the boy suffered.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGuilt weighed on him throughout a childhood split between the rural Hudson Valley and jungles of Haiti. As a young man, his feelings and a growing sense of idealism prompted him to activism in the civil rights movement, where he marched and was imprisoned, and then scarred again by a terrifying abduction. Eventually, Orr's experiences led him to understand that art, particularly poetry, could work as a powerful source of healing and meaning to combat the trauma he carried.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout \u003cem\u003eThe Blessing\u003c\/em\u003e, Orr articulates his journey in language as lyrical as it is authentic, gifting us all with a singular tale of survival, and of the transformation of suffering into art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":31541796306967,"sku":"9781571313867","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0004\/6497\/7956\/products\/content_173637a4-e9e3-40c4-807f-7c68ea152d73.jpg?v=1590780676","url":"https:\/\/open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com\/products\/the-blessing-a-memoir-by-gregory-orr","provider":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","version":"1.0","type":"link"}