Events – Poetry In Time

Paddling the Sweet Spot

Woman sitting still on a paddleboard on a calm mountain lake.

Finishing Line Press will publish my first chapbook with presales beginning November 24, 2025! Get ready to reserve your copy for a March 2026 release.

Book Synopsis

Laura E. Garrard received a call that many of us fear. She thought she was a healthy person with an injury, and instead she harbored a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma. In her poetry chapbook, Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death, Garrard’s lyricism and vivid narratives illuminate living in the “narrow exception of movement” during a time of acute uncertainty. Readers journey with the author and her body through grief, surrender and recovery to plant their hands in earth, swim with dolphins, and run with the salmon. Garrard’s free-spoken style and vulnerable honesty invite readers into her desperation, determination, entreaty and joy. She asks, “What is a human without honor?” Her poignant observations demonstrate how we live and die, simultaneously, and that the present moment is the sweet spot of survival. Garrard’s poetry asks us to destigmatize death and disease in a culture that reveres youth and health, so that we all may live fully. As cancer permeates our communities like never before, this collection is a gift of renewal.

Garrard is a Pushcart Prize nominee and finalist in Bellevue Literary Review’s John & Eileen Allman Prize for Poetry. Her work also appears in TulipTree Review, Amethyst Review, The Madrona Project, Silver Birch, and others. She writes a cancer poetry series, Poetry That Fits, for Penn Medicine’s OncoLink.org.

Endorsements

Laura E. Garrard’s poems are courageous compass-settings for navigating a place of balance and bodily, emotional and spiritual contending. She is fighting a life threatening cancer in language both nuanced and frontal. “Living is precious / The trick is / Not wanting it too much / Not calling death closer.” I finished the book feeling greatly uplifted. Its cargo is a true teaching of how to live daily on the shifting edge of our own mortality and that of those we love.

—Tess Gallagher, author of Is, Is Not

In her chapbook poetry collection, Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death, the first line of Laura E. Garrard’s poem, “Humbled,” reads I am cleaved by lightning. Garrard navigates a world of illness, the inherent fears of death that are overcome by an instinct for survival, the gripping complexities within the process of healing. The experiences of these poems by Laura E. Garrard reveal that for every corridor of grief there are as many rooms of sustaining light, and that is very human, that’s being much alive.

—Gary Copeland Lilley, poet and author of Raven on the Moaners’ Bench and The Bushman’s Medicine Show

Kudos to Laura E. Garrard for writing honest poems that question the familiar trope of vanquishing cancer, asking: “Why fight against / Death as if it were a foe?” Instead, Garrard listens to her body with compassion, embarking on a journey to bring her life into balance and find that “sweet spot of flow called letting go.” These vivid, sensory poems take us along as she swims in the wake of spotted dolphins, sees messages in barn swallows at play, and listens to alders at the edge of the lake where she finds peace. In the end, we arrive at her epiphany with gratitude for her hard-earned wisdom: “The closer we are to the glass door of death / The freer we are to cornerstone live.”

—Holly J. Hughes, author of Passings, winner of an American Book Award

Photo by Berk Ucak. Top Photo by AscentXMedia.

“Hugging Alder” for Pushcart.

Photographs of a large alder tree on Lake Crescent with the sunset. Links included to the poem as well as Tulip Tree Press.

TulipTree Review‘s Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Top nominated my 2024 Merit Prize winning poem, “Hugging Alder,” for a Pushcart Prize. This honor is difficult to write about because I was quite surprised and grateful. So that you can read it easily, here is a link to a second contest I have entered it into, The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders. It will be considered for publication in an anthology published by Paloma Press of California in connection with the Kent State Wick Center and PoetsforScience.org. Originally, TulipTree published the poem in Stories That Need to be Told, 2024.

https://www.tuliptreepub.com/pushcart-nominees.html

Hugging Alder

Reading for Solidarity, Resilience & Togetherness

I will read three poems at Imprint Bookstore’s event, Jan. 20 6:30-8:30 p.m. Port Townsend, Washington.

There is limited capacity, so arrive early and please be flexible.

There will be fifteen poets reading related to Togetherness in a time for Solidarity and Resilience. I will address stigmas related to chronic illness. This will be a time of community, hope, reassurance, and encouragement!

Studium Generale: Inspired by Art Ekphrastic Poetry Reading

January 9 – 12:35 pm-1:35 pm – Little Theater, Peninsula College, Port Angeles

Event page, Peninsula College website.

I will read two poems from Inspired by Art: Olympic Authors & Artists: “Doors of Unknown Significance” and “Salmon Parent.” Many other poets published in this anthology will read as well.

This anthology includes ekphrastic poetry in response to talented local artists and photographers (including Olympic Peaks Camera Club). Their works have exhibited this year at Studio Bob’s, the Blue Whole Gallery, and Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.

Take a Stand: Poets Against Hate

On Saturday, Oct. 19, 2-4 p.m., at the Seattle Central Public Library (1000 Fourth Ave, Seattle, WA 98104) poets will read their poems about and take their stands against hate and bigotry.

My contribution will be “Stigmatized and Written Off,” a poem from my full-length (unpublished) cancer poetry memoir. This poem first published on OncoLink.com last month. It touches on the stigma of chronic or terminal disease.

Our culture glorifies youth and often stigmatizes the sick. We don’t deal well with death or the dying either. Oftentimes, cancer patients are dumped by friends and spouses. Also, they can be discriminated against, even by healthcare providers who make global assumptions based on cancer diagnosis. My poem brings these things to light.

Meanwhile, cancer patients are living. This diagnosis is different for each patient with specific circumstances of individuals. Plus, every human dies…we don’t know when. So what’s the deal with this type of discrimination and disempowerment? Let’s get real – disease happens, and to those who take good care of themselves too. A person isn’t a disease nor a disability. A person is a person is a person is a person.

Stigmatized and Written Off

Three close friends of mine opt out.
The last thing said, It’s treatable right? 
Yesterday I read an athlete obit,
Younger man dies in a kayak accident.
So alive was he, everyone in shock,
His abrupt memorial packed no doubt.
But what of those who linger on?

Letting go is a large lesson
In life and death facing.
There’s almost an inward scoff, 
No more energy for outward response
To those unconsciously saying,
Sorry that you’ve got cancer cells
Running all over your body,
Or, So, you’re going to do the
Killing yourself thing to live.
Yes, these things are said.
Surprised? By ignorance,
False confidence, in a culture 
That worships youth and wealth?
Well, I don’t plan to die just yet –
Is that okay with you?
And not every subsequent health issue
Is another cancer—Sorry,
Does this disappoint your need 
To assume that for me it’s all over?

I’m folding myself into poetry batter,
Yes, writing myself in
For whatever time I have to spend,
And with those friends who 
Will have me outlive them.
Dumped due to an impending death –
You’re damn right I care about that.
Aren’t we all headed that way?
Most don’t deny and set me aside.
I thank God for this every day.

By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2024

Introducing ‘Poetry That Fits’

I am proud that a new poetry series based on my unpublished manuscript is appearing on OncoLink, the Net’s first cancer information website. This site is associated with Penn Medicine and provides information to patients, caregivers and medical staff internationally. One handy feature is a thorough database of cancer meds, what they do and their possible side effects.

My poems appear on their Creative Inspiration page under Patients: Support and in a dedicated section, Poetry That Fits. This title suggests my authentic poetic responses to the situations and emotions I have faced as well as the sardonic irreverent tone that is often necessary. Spirituality and hope are undercurrents yet I don’t hide the grit, the fits.

Here is the link:

https://www.oncolink.org/support/resources/creative-inspiration/poetry-that-fits

My first poem has published this week and five more, one per week, will post in this set. I hope that those with cancer, and those who care for and about them, will find validation, healing, resonance, and further understanding of this unique stressful experience in our culture.

I wrote most of my poems in real time–as incidents, thoughts and emotions unfolded–then edited them into a full-length poetry memoir about the two years following a diagnosis of a plasmacytoma tumor then progression to multiple myeloma. Every time I reread my book, I underline the importance of present-minded living for myself and review the wisdom this challenge has taught me… is still teaching me.

You may relate having navigated a different turnpike. I hope these poems offer solace and company through your own traumatic events and uninvited adaptations. None of us are isolated in our struggles when we share, listen and find common ground.

Reading of “The More Moments I Find Prismatic, the Less Dark My Attic.”

The order of this first segment of poems will appear as follows:

“The More Moments I Find Prismatic, The Less Dark My Attic”
“The First Axe Falls”
“Stigmatized and Written Off”
“Looking Out, Looking In”
“I Don’t Have All the Answers”
“I Can’t Go Back”

If you would like to find out more about my unpublished full-length manuscript, fill out the form below and click, Contact Us. Currently, I am entering my book into contests and submitting it to small presses for possible publication.

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Contrast, Poetry in the Park Exhibit.

My poem, “Contrast,” was selected to exhibit in the 2024 Poetry in the Park in Webster Woods of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center. The theme was “Colorization,” and how what humans place in Nature affects our responses to and experiences in Nature. One aspect of this marriage, a negative one, has stood out to me late winter into spring – the contrast of naturally occurring white color against green (stark beauty) and trash on the drive between my house in Olympic National Park and Port Angeles, especially along the curvy drive next to magnificent Lake Crescent.

So, this could be considered an ecopoem as well as a witness poem. I hope it brings attention to locals and visitors how litter detracts from our outdoor experiences, even as we drive, and encourages behavioral change. I have never lived in a place with this level of disregard and disrespect for the land in the form of littering. I hate to criticize, however, perhaps locals have become blind to this issue. I discovered that the Park Service plans a clean-up along Hwy 101 next to Park property. They will have to close areas of the road to safely do this. Perhaps then, there may be an effort of other clean-ups along the highway.

You may listen to my reading of this poem on the PAFAC website: https://pafac.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Contrast.mp3

Lake Crescent from Log Cabin Resort.
By Laura E. Garrard

‘Empty Bowl Cookbook’ Reading

I am reading my published poem, “My Mother’s Parents Free Ranged,” along with other Cookbook authors at the Olympic Peninsula Authors’ open mic-night, February 16, at 6 p.m. There is also a Zoom livestream!

The evening will begin with the special journal readings, then followed by an open-mic.

The location: 609 W. Washington Street at KSQM in the SE corner of the Sequim Village Shopping Center.

Other writers are welcome to read their work following the special readings. Readings are timed to 5 minutes per author, and you may read prose, poetry, fiction, or nonfiction.

Zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81703865019

To purchase a copy of this four-color journal of poetry, prose, and art, link here to the Empty Bowl Press.

Finding Rest in an Old Growth Forest

The Port Angeles Fine Arts Center and Olympic Peninsula Authors selected this poem of mine for their “Under the Canopy” 2023 Poetry in the Park outdoor exhibit in Webster Woods.

The actual tree I lean against and call “Charlie.”

Artist credits for Webster Woods sculptures (top to bottom, left to right): Brandon Zebold, “Offering;” David Eisenhour, “Watershed Notes;” Micajah Bienvenu, “Pi a la Mode;” Steve Jensen, “Suspended Canoe Adrift;” Community Nature Weaving from Summertide 2023 with assistance from MarySue French; Steve Belz, “Sky Gazer;” Laura E. Garrard, “Butterflies Flurry While I Recline on ‘Sky Gazer’.”

The Legend of the Bell Mansion

Photo by Lennart Wittstock on Pexels.com

The Legend of the Bell Mansion

Where I’m from there’s a story told,
It may or may not be true,
But as sure as I stand here now
It will come alive for you.

In Tennessee, there was a landowner,
John Bell, who farmed a thousand acres
In a small, early American town.
He, wife Lucy, and his family lived in a mansion on a hill.
Inside they heard crafty squeaks and screeches,
Knocks and yelps that woke them from sleep.
Even when tortured Betsy’s hair was pulled tight,
The nine children dare not open their eyes.
The parents remained stoic for a long time, slow to rise,
Until one watching hour the alarm too loud to ignore,
The children screamed and parents raced to their implores.

The father grew angry, his family afraid.
He was their protector, his courage would not cave.
In those days they carried candles to light their way.
A draft filled the hallway and flickered his flame
As John made his way from the bedrooms
To the drawing room, where social visits took place,
And he had welcomed dignitaries in humor to hear
The home’s infamous haunting sounds.

When his candle snuffed, John gazed up to see a glow
That was unnatural, flowing gray garments embroidered
With thorns arose with white hair in the air before him.
This eerie sight chilled his blood and organs.
The translucent phantom extended her hands toward him,
Her vacant eyes big as pies, begging him to come closer.
His feet shuffled to her, he did not understand why.
Gore gripped him for her middle had been ripped wide,
Her dress at the waist tattered by a knife.

He looked down, his feet no longer moved,
Yet they rose above the hardwood,
Toes traveling and dragging, his heart pounding.
The banshee tornado bore him into her horror.
His mouth opened, but as in nightmares nothing would emit,
Just as he reached her exposed guts and body of dust,
He passed through her as if she weren’t there.

Dampness filled his body, the sour smell of rot his nostrils,
He turned back to discover the hallway was hollow.
His slippers swept the floorboards again,
As he grasped to compose himself, John entered
The drawing room and sat on the red velvet couch.
Putting his head in hands, he thought What just happened?
Until then, it seemed a storyteller’s joke,
The menacing noises the house evoked.
Now as real as a ghost can be, and then not,
He believed in souls who went knock, knock, knock.

After that night the ghoul appeared only to him,
Never to anyone else, family nor friends.
The wraith haunted him, her only victim.
Perhaps she thought he had been her killer, or building
The mansion on her unmarked grave had disturbed her.
Since no one else ever saw the spirit,
His stories made him seem insane,
And to that she drove him deeper and farther
Until finally on his deathbed, he yelled louder than anyone
Screamed as he passed into the world unseen.
If you could see what he saw,
You would have yelled as well, for due to his obsession
He entered the apparition’s insufferable world
of in between and not the glory to which he had been bound.

To this day many still fear the witch who impelled
Old Jack Bell to his hell. The legend goes,
You can check if she haunts you,
By bravely facing a mirror in an enclosed bathroom,
Flipping the light switch off,
And in the pitch of dark,
Say aloud three times fast,
“I don’t believe in the Bell Mansion Witch!”
Turn on the light and see what you find in the glass.
If the ghost doesn’t emerge and you view yourself,
Sigh in relief. But you will never know
Each time you test your nerve
Just what you’ll see. It might be Old Jack Bell himself.

Poem selected by Olympia Peninsula Authors to be read at the Port Angeles Fine Art Center Celebration of Shadows Festival, Oct. 22, 5:30-7 p.m., Ester Webster Gallery Courtyard.

Listen to the audio below.

“The Legend of the Bell Mansion,” read by the author, Laura E. Garrard.