'Grief Road'

If you've followed my journal for that long, you may remember that about 18 months ago I was taking pictures for a book cover.  This is it - and tonight I'll be going down to its launch in town.

Written by my sister, it is a book of poems about her husband, Robb Jackson, who came home a couple of days after open heart surgery in 2013, then died of a consequent catastrophic infection..  Robb was a boy from Ohio and they spent their long marriage both teaching in the English Department at Texas University A&M.  Vanessa came back to England in 2014.

I find this very hard to read.  It makes me well up.  But she's a good poet and I think it's a huge achievement.  The book is published by Iron Press based in North Shields.

For those who like poetry, here's a sample:

AFTER HE DIED

No-one asked me if I was all right.
They said, wait over there by that window,
and when you see a green taxi pull up
it will be for you.  They wanted me gone
because a hospital's early morning shift
does not like to begin with bereavement.

The driver smelled of sweat and cigarettes
and talked about how life had never
given him a chance.  At the kerb
where he dropped me, a large black glove
lay in the road, lost, I suppose,
by one of the paramedics in the dark.
I unlocked the front door and walked into a house
whose life support had just been switched off.

If I get a nice pic at the launch I'll add it as an extra later tonight.
Thanks for reading this, lovely blipfriends  xx

(Booksigning pic from the launch now added)