Impact Statement

by Bob Stallworthy

Impact Statement is a book of transitions.Transitions that are brought about by a catastrophic health situation. Transitions in life brought on by facing the potential for death and dying to happen at any time; being desperate enough to ask for help from a long ignored faith; the realization that a long time loving relationship has been neglected; understanding that that relationship can be weeded and tended like a garden until it blooms again. This is, in every sense, a book of love poems.

Edited by Richard Harrison

SKU: 9781989466056 Categories: ,

$19.95 CAD

Additional information

Weight .155 kg
Dimensions 9 × 6 × 0.2185 in
Page Count

60

Binding

Soft Cover with flaps

Year Published

2020

Bob Stallworthy

Bob Stallworthy has been active in the Alberta writing community since he began writing full-time and professionally in 1985. He is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.

Bob has 4 books of poetry previously published. His poetry has been shortlisted for the City of Calgary, W.O. Mitchell Book Prize twice and the Stephan G. Stephansson Prize for Poetry once.

He is co-recipient of the Calgary Freedom of Expression Award, 2002; a Lifetime member of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta,1988; and the recipient of the Golden Pen Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, 2019.

He has been a Patient/Family Advisor with the Kidney Health, Strategic Clinical Network, Alberta Health Services since 2016. He is a full-time caregiver for his wife who suffered traumatic kidney failure in 2013.

Winner of the Alberta Writers Guild Golden Pen Award for lifetime achievement

Other books by Bob Stallworthy:
Under the Sky Speaking, Snowapple Press, 1998
From a Call Box, Frontenac House, 2001
Optics, Frontenac House, 2004
Things that Matter Now, Frontenac House, 2009
In Silhouette, an e-book hosted by Frontenac House, 2010

Bob Stallworthy’s poems are spare and understated, yet they fill a huge space of uncertainty, tenderness and the stubborn survival of hope. This book offers us loving insight in a world that “extends its edge / one step ahead of my foot.
~ Alice Major

With “sheets that cling to their cold… my feet in search of yours,” Stallworthy’s tribute grieves and celebrates this knife-edged journey with his beloved. Tracing each “small round moment in which we live,” the poems gift us with the beauty of our fragile immediacy.
~ Weyman Chan

With sparse yet clear precision and poetic elegance, Impact Statement captures the urgency of life as it is threatened by a surprize emergency. Poet Bob Stallworthy tightens the knot as he invites the reader to the core of his struggle with the end of life, as he knew it. The poetry engages as he traverses personal trauma brought about by the illness of the woman he loves. Through the pages of this book the reader is carefully guided into a stunning resolve as Stallworthy learns to accept change, and even embrace it. Impact Statement is a magnificent reflection and meditation on life.
~ Sheri-D Wilson

Last Day in ICU

this morning when I get to ICU
you’re sitting in a chair
outside your room
watching the doctors do rounds

no IV
no oxygen
to tie you
to this place

with each step I take
you draw the line between us
straighter            wider with your smile
until there is only that line
the two of us and your voice

after 3 weeks
your first words
     hey you!