How would I live my life if I knew exactly how many days I had left? Would I try hard to make every day count or surrender to fate like a rudderless boat? Would I seek quiet wonders to enhance my days or bedazzling thrills? Would I strive for perfection or take risks and accept the chance of failure? Would I wish for more days or for the end to come sooner? Would I fill my weird and hungry heart with longing or with gratitude? Would I look back on the final day with satisfaction or regret? Do I want to know how many days? I think I’d rather be surprised.
Like Joy is Glenna Cook’s third full-length collection of poems, all published by MoonPath Press. Her first collection, Thresholds, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Cook grew up in Olympia, Washington, where, at age 18, she married her husband, Kenneth. They had 3 children (their oldest, a son, died of cancer in 2016 at age 60), and she has 9 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren. After a 25-year career with the telephone company, she retired from US West Communications in 1990, then immediately enrolled in college. She graduated from the University of Puget Sound, Magna cum Laude in 1994 at age 58, with a BA in English Literature. While at university, she won the Hearst Essay Prize for the Humanities and the Nixeon Civille Handy Prizein poetry. She is a Hedgebrook alumna and a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.
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My dad walks out the front door onto the porch of the Coos Bay Lifeboat Station. He is thirty-three years old and handsome in his uniform. He takes a few steps down the stairs and sits. The air smells of freshly mown grass and low-tide seaweed. I am twelve and sit tall in the saddle on my new horse. I am wearing suede cowboy boots and buttery yellow chaps. Dad is teaching me what to expect when I compete in my first show. First, I practice figure eights. Then he calls out for me to walk, lope, trot, reverse direction, and back up. We practice until he stands and says good job Kiwi—my cue to ride the wooded trail back to the barn. It was such a small moment. His voice so tender. Something slipped beneath my skin. Something slumbered in my marrow.
Carey Taylor was born in Bandon, Oregon, shortly after her parents moved into their first home, next door to the Port Orford Lifeboat Station. She grew up following her father’s Coast Guard career on the Oregon and Washington. Her love of this western edge of the world has been an integral part of her identity and one of her greatest writing muses. Carey is the author of The Lure of Impermanence (Cirque Press). She is the winner of the 2022 Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and runner-up for the Concrete Wolf Louis Poetry Book Award. She has been published in the United States, Ireland, and England. She has a Master’s Degree in School Counseling from Pacific Lutheran University. Carey lives in Portland, Oregon. You can visit her website careyleetaylor.com.
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