The Long Haul

"When watching a loved one die slowly - over a span of months or years - the five stages of grief don't wait around for that final breath. Even so, we're never ready, even when we are. It was too late, Ken Gierke writes. For all of us, it was too early. The long passing of a parent, someone who's passed on half of our DNA, carries with it a sixth stage: Waiting for our bodies to betray us as well. Gierke's The Long Haul captures that somber matter-of-factness through three narrative threads: The death of Gierke's father, his own yearlong health crisis when his gallbladder went bad, and a congenital hole in a wall of his heart. He recounts each in small telling details: a panhandler near his father's hospital, stubbed toes turning blue, the sound of Miles Davis' horn as the last of the anesthesia wears off. The poems here acknowledge grief, apprehension, pain physical and psychic. They do not, however, wallow in them. The Long Haul lives in those fifth and sixth stages - and are far more affecting and effective for that. When Gierke writes Nothing to do but let it play / until the clock runs down, we set our mouths and nod along with him. We have been there, we are there, and we and our loved ones will be there sooner or later."

-Steve Brisendine, author, Pitch Invader on a Foosball Table and Behind the Wall Cloud of Sleep

"This book is a family affair and we learn the journey we are on is never completed even after decades have passed, even if our secrets, expectations, and obligations are buried in the backyard garden waiting for the next resurrection. And we learn that life takes a lifetime for all the body's failures to coalesce, and become a place that he can hold onto until he can't and hello becomes goodbye. The Long Haul by Ken Gierke is a love story. All of us are born here by a mother and father. Ken's father taught him to confront life, not to surrender, not to back away. There is nothing that is definite, determined, lasting. Ken learns that life is relative, changing, growing, following up and down in expected and unexpected paths. There is always something to share, someone to thank and he does thank his father for his guidance many times."

-Walter Bargen, first Poet Laureate of Missouri and author of Orwell at the Kremlin

Ken Gierke is not afraid to challenge us and himself in his lovely collection of moving poems found in The Long Haul, an amazing book about love, loss, and the illusive nature of time. It's also about the creative impulse to remember and record it all while voices break through, sometimes in dreams, to remind us of those we've lost and the lessons they gave us. It's about the journey, the long hall, as time grows short and the future is uncertain. As Gierke says: It's about new days and making memories. Death will have to wait. I'll take every minute, every scribbled line that comes my way.

-Terry Allen, author, Rubber Time and Preserving the Past for the Present

There are narratives, timelines, converging like scenery passing windshield to sideview in The Long Haul. In this collection Gierke finds peace in his past and specifically in his memories of his father. Those same memories become even more real as his own health crisis come to light. Through each hospital corridor, as alarms beep from all directions, frustration mounts and grace bleeds through. In The Long Haul seasons pass as moments that can be savored.

-Jason Baldinger, author, American Aorta