The Hauntings

Poetry. "Open this exquisite volume, THE HAUNTINGS, and you'll find the same exacting attention to language and life that Gail Waldstein paid to the still bodies of children she examined for decades as a pediatric pathologist. What unifies her medical and poetical work is a deep awareness of how ephemeral and fragile our lives are. These poems connect, sometimes with haunted reflection and often with luminous joy, the many selves contained within the speaker: daughter, mother, lover, wife, doctor, grandmother, poet. They remind us that we are most beautiful when we are aware. As in Buddhist thought and practice: at first we know nothing; then we witness to understand; finally, we engage in loving action. These poems are forms of loving action. They are evocative and varied gifts we receive from the world."—Mauricio Kilwein Guevara