Afterwords

There may be, says writer Ken Foster, just one universal story: somebody lost something. Afterwords, too, tells a story of loss, but these spare and elegant poems are reminders that the "afterwords" can also speak of surviving with what remains.

In describing Afterwords, poet Patricia Smith says, "Ellen Steinbaum has crafted an exquisite elegy, an achingly precise roadmap for our journeys to fear, loss, immeasurable heartache, and ultimate understanding. In Afterwords, an unflinching chronicle of her husband's illness and death, each poem is sharp and lyrically textured with an insistent current of rage and confusion pulsing beneath. This book will not make you comfortable--but it will leave you changed."