Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death
Forthcoming March 2026 from Finishing Line Press, a poetry chapbook about the trauma of cancer diagnosis, grief, self-advocacy and recovery – a book about nature- and art-inspired healing.
Laura E. Garrard received a call that many of us fear. She thought she was a healthy person with an injury, and instead she harbored a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma. In her poetry chapbook, Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death, Garrard’s lyricism and vivid narratives illuminate living in the “narrow exception of movement” during a time of acute uncertainty. Readers journey with the author and her body through grief, surrender and recovery to plant their hands in earth, swim with dolphins, and run with the salmon. Garrard’s free-spoken style and vulnerable honesty invite readers into her desperation, determination, entreaty and joy. She asks, “What is a human without honor?” Her poignant observations demonstrate how we live and die, simultaneously, and that the present moment is the sweet spot of survival. Garrard’s poetry asks us to destigmatize death and disease in a culture that reveres youth and health, so that we all may live fully. As cancer permeates our communities like never before, this collection is a gift of renewal.
“In her chapbook poetry collection, Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death, the first line of Laura E. Garrard’s poem, “Humbled,” reads I am cleaved by lightning. Garrard navigates a world of illness, the inherent fears of death that are overcome by an instinct for survival, the gripping complexities within the process of healing. The experiences of these poems by Laura E. Garrard reveal that for every corridor of grief there are as many rooms of sustaining light, and that is very human, that’s being much alive.”
—Gary Copeland Lilley, poet and author of Raven on the Moaners’ Bench and The Bushman’s Medicine Show
Gallery Photo Credits: Top Left: Berk Ucak; Middle Left: Pete Will; Lower Left: Mexitographer; Right: Reniw-Energy.
Contact: Laura E. Garrard, garrardpoet@lauraegarrard.com
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