A Scattering and Anniversary: Poems
Christopher Reid

Into that Good Night – Long before he grew deathly ill, our friend and great teacher Eugene Burger spoke often with Robert Charles and me about the need “to make friends with death.” One way I’ve been doing that is through reading. These Christopher Reid poems were penned as his wife, Lucinda Gane, was dying of cancer at the age of 55, and in the wake of her death as Reid found himself swimming through rivers of grief. The poems reveal a sparkling portrait of Lucinda Gane while celebrating what it means to love even in the darkest times. For anyone who has nursed a loved one in their final weeks and days, these powerful poems will ring especially true and clear. This book, then, joins Christopher Hitchens’ “Mortality” and Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking” in guiding me on this strange journey to meet my final friend. (Let’s hope it’s a long journey, indeed!)