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Critical Praise

“Madge McKeithen treats poetry as what Kenneth Burke calls ‘equipment for living.’ Poems become her abiding companions as she lives through and confronts her son’s devastating unnamed illness. Blue Peninsula is a deeply moving book that, like good poetry itself, disturbs and consoles.”

——Edward Hirsch, author of Poet’s Choice

“A mother with a passion for poetry, Madge McKeithen shows us by example how to find comfort in verse as she lives with the agonizing burden of her son’s mysterious illness. In her words and those of others, she reveals a creative way to bear the pain of unresolved loss and grief. Poignantly, she finds strength and resiliency as poetry offers the solace of some truth when the ambiguities of life cannot.”

——Pauline Boss, author of Ambiguous Loss and Loss, Trauma, and Resilience