The Series by Cherie Hanson

January 20, 2023
Poem title: The Series Poet name: Cherie Hanson Poem: there are certain times in my life that are distinct the line between the normal and the now ripped out like a page of a book. the nine years in university working one clinging rung to another up some ladder for a higher perch, purchase, view to fall for food dropped into teaching high school decade after decade warming the car in the morning packing in my every evening meticulous marking and smearing chalk then felt pen on the perpendicular detailed for easy consumption for the eyes of hundreds filling seat after seat. failing into retirement with cancer then deforming bones while my body attacked itself. the silent death of marriages and the always The moving on. now is like that. this now of coming out of high altitude thin air isolation and self-protective fear. not just ending but ending like a saw cutting an escaping hole in the fence buzzing through my body with three surgeries. and every time I stood stone quiet and thought “I begin again.” End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Cherie Hanson Cherie Hanson holds an MA in poetry from UBC, Vancouver. In 2019 she was juried into the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive with editor Elee Kraljii Gardiner for her non-fiction book Walking the Streets of Blood. More recently, she won awards in 2021 and 2022 from the Wine Country Writer’s Festival and in 2022 from Askew’s Word on the Lake Writer’s Conference. Her work includes produced plays, fiction, non-fiction and a blog with 75,500 subscribers. Social justice, Buddhist practices inform her works. Her style is surreal, intense and bold. Her goal is to give a voice to those who are unseen.