The Voice of Larina Warnock

Over the years of publishing Touch: The Journal of Healing, we have had the opportunity to publish the works of many gifted poets and authors.  But this month, something very special unfolded as we received the submissions of Larina Warnock.  Larina has been an ongoing contributor to the Journal since the first issue and was featured in Issue 4 as Editor's Choice with several masterful pieces written during the loss of her father.  Her honest, heartfelt style is both strong and insightful, daring to challenge the malaise of life's daily struggles, and finding beauty in the detail of difficult moments, even when they start as minutes and become months and years.  Her writings remind us to capture every joy, question every expectation, and let go, so that in accepting the nature of life, a river can swell where grief left only drought.

She also shared with us some of the challenges that arose while raising and nurturing her family, including her son Zack's struggle with cerebral palsy.  With expert poetic craft, her words transported us into her family's life, not to sympathize but to share her understanding and the courage she found to treasure aspects of life that often are taken for granted and overlooked.

Larina's skill and candor is exceptional in both her prose and poetry.  She brings together an awareness of details and uniquely metaphorical imagery with a profound honesty of emotion that speaks as an intellectual, a woman, a daughter, a mother, and a friend to all who would share in her story.  The iconic imagery she uses teaches us a new vocabulary of what can be treasured in life, whether a box elder bug, a hamper of dirty clothes, a dimple on the cheek, or a revolving bicycle tire.

In this issue, we are taught a new science, the thermodynamics of grief, in “The Science of Water.”  We learn that grief intermingles with memories and dreams and that time refuses to stop, even in the face of grief and loss in “Mourning Letter.”  In  “What Poets Do,” her final poem, with exquisite self-awareness, Larina speaks about the vocation of poetry itself, mixing together equal parts of captivating imagery and the freedom that comes from self-disregard and naked determination.  Through all her works, we are given a unique and special opportunity to not only share in her life but also her growth and evolving insight into the complexities and rhythms of life.

It is with great pleasure that I present to you a returning voice of Touch: Larina Warnock.

O.P.W. Fredericks, Editor

Editor’s Choice