Terminal Surreal: Poems by Martha Silano

Terminal Surreal: Poems

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Terminal Surreal: Poems by Martha Silano
  • Terminal Surreal: Poems by Martha Silano
Terminal Surreal: Poems

Acre Books

Terminal Surreal: Poems

by Martha Silano

$17.00
$17.00

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This unflinching poetry collection follows the author's diagnosis with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

In her masterful poetry collection Terminal Surreal, Martha Silano confronts the reality of mortality with gorgeous attention to imagery and scene. The book follows a trajectory from early symptoms before diagnosis with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to full-blown illness and its effects on friends and family, including her children, who appear in poems like "After Dropping My Son Off at College" and "My Nineteen-Year-Old Daughter Is My Personal Assistant."

With a devoted naturalist's eye, Silano revels in birds, trees, and flowers in a way that reminds readers we are connected to the world around us. The book touches on the medical, the metaphysical, and even the cosmological (through encounters in medical offices and on a moon of Mars). With Nutter Butters and Lorna Doones, abecedarians and self-elegies, Silano's singular, feisty, contemporary voice propels these poems of grief and acceptance as they explore the transformational power of art.

When I Learn Catastrophically

is an anagram of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
When I learn I probably have a couple years,
maybe (catastrophically) less, crossword puzzles
begin to feel meaningless, though not the pair
of mergansers, not the red cardinal of my heart.
The sky does all sorts of marvelously uncatastrophic
things that winter I shimmy between science
& song, between widgeons & windows, weather
& its invitation to walk. Walking, which becomes
my lose less, my less morsels, my lose smile
while more sore looms. . . .
Book Details
Publisher:
Acre Books
ISBN:
9781946724946
Binding:
Paperback
Pages:
116
Authors:
Martha Silano
Published Date:
2025-09-01
Language:
English
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All Poetry Death, Grief, Loss Women Authors

About Martha Silano

Martha Silano (1961–2025) earned a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College. She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington, then taught composition and creative writing at Bellevue College, which she joined in 2005. She grew up in central New Jersey and settled near Seattle. Blue Positive came from Steel Toe Books in 2006; The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception won the 2010 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, and This One We Call Ours won the Blue Lynx Prize from Lynx House Press. She also won the James Hearst Poetry Prize from the North American Review. Diagnosed with ALS in 2023, she died on 5 May 2025, aged 63; Terminal Surreal and Last Train to Paradise appeared posthumously.

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