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What is the Book About?

In «Cancer Courts My Mother,» a daughter becomes caregiver to her abusive, soul-scorching mother, discovering that tending to the dying can unexpectedly heal the living.  In this intimate drama, cancer plays Casanova—a relentless suitor determined to steal a mother from her family.

Mistrustful of the poetics of dying and bereavement, and determined to avoid cliché, LindaAnn LoSchiavo has alighted on a form which eschews the elegiac in favor of a two-way narrative arc structured like a funicular. 

The downward movement, a terminally ill patient’s inevitable decline, is presented as marital peril:  a dangerous dalliance.  Disease is disguised as an illicit lover―“the dark prince whose wanton seduction has already begun, the sly suitor who will reach the terminus.”

In contrast, the ascending movement is hopeful, told through the sub-plot of fulfilling a last request: “Work miracles,” commanded half-shut eyes.By carefully reversing little green deaths, the poems transform a wish into reality: a full recovery of the dying woman’s cherished houseplants.

Matt Potter, Editor-in-Chief of Pure Slush Publishing, offered this praise:  Real and harried, purposeful and comprehensive, when understanding is sought and reason is not always kind, «Cancer Courts My Mother» provides readers with great measures of meaning. 

Some poems in this poignant collection have won individual prizes and were seen in literary journals in five countries, Australia, Canada, England, Hungary, and the United States.   

«Cancer Courts My Mother» gives voice to the creativity borne out of the experience of late-stage cancer from the perspective of a caregiver and a daughter. Written with candor, warmth, and heart-wrenching grace, these poems explore universal themes of sorrow, resiliency, relationships, anger, hope, and love. This collection is for anyone who’s ever wondered how to go forward in the face of suffering, but who doesn’t expect an easy answer.

From LindaAnn LoSchiavo

«… every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome …» 
  — Adrienne Rich

Perhaps because I grew up in a Roman Catholic family, I am drawn to acrostics (crosses) and the punitive syllable counting (the rosary) required by formal verse.  I often employ traditional forms that harness language and shape unruly thoughts.  I use rhyme — both internal and end line — conceding to a self-conscious artifice that rearranges the unfamiliar into something less formidable, i.e., personifying Cancer as my mother’s devoted and determined suitor.
 
Everything has a border, the edge where light cannot get in.  In this poetry collection, I’ve tried to illuminate the difficult daily rituals of taking care of a patient who will neither show improvement nor recuperate.  

Praise for «Cancer Courts My Mother«

When an adult child becomes caretaker for a parent with cancer, family dynamics shift profoundly.  In «Cancer Courts My Mother,» LindaAnn LoSchiavo captures this complex journey through poetry that balances tenderness with brutal honesty. She navigates caregiving’s challenges with grace, inviting readers to witness the delicate interplay of love and fear while portraying her mother as a fully realized, complex human being. The journey isn’t pretty—sometimes the words are fierce—but this collection digs deep into universal experiences of loss and care.
― Kellie Scott Reed, Poetry Editor, Roi Fainéant (USA)

In «Cancer Courts My Mother,» LindaAnn LoSchiavo chronicles an emotional journey through varied poetic forms. She weaves a metaphor of nurturing plants back to life while her mother finds remission, then faces cancer’s return. The collection reconciles memories of a difficult mother with the current, vulnerable one — «Bad memories are cadavers that refuse burial.»  As both subject and narrator,  LoSchiavo illuminates the delicate balance between personal autonomy and familial duty.
  ― Karen Cline-Tardiff, poet and Editor-in-Chief of Gnashing Teeth Publishing (USA)

Real and harried, purposeful and comprehensive, when understanding is sought and reason is not always kind, «Cancer Courts My Mother» provides readers with great measures of meaning.     
― Matt Potter, Editor-in-Chief of Pure Slush Publishing (Australia) and author of «Hamburgers and Berliners»

Sample Passage with Art

Enjoy This Poem from «Cancer Courts My Mother»

Living Through the Dying

Resuscitate the wilted, raise what's close 
To death: on their lanai I'm still green 
At miracles, surrounded by a sky
Gone cold, thin tendrils, others that curled up 
In self-protection, living through dying:
My mother's crown-of-thorns, old hens and chicks, 
Impatiens, rosary vines, all consigned.

I'm trusted to recover favorites
Forgotten in ruined grass blades wisped away,
Neglect decreeing green untimely deaths.

Hidden in its high hum of red desire,
An amaryllis, prized, waits, hibernates.  

© LindaAnn LoSchiavo

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Author Biography

Native New Yorker and award-winner, LindaAnn LoSchiavo is a member of British Fantasy Society, Horror Writers Association, Science Fiction Poetry Association, and The Dramatists Guild.

Her craft essays have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Authors Publish Magazine, Beyond Craft, Behind the Pages, Roi Fainéant, Review Tales, etc. 

Between 2018 – 2025, she has had nine chapbooks and two full-length collections released by various presses in the USA, the UK, and India.

Book Accolades: Elgin Award for “A Route Obscure and Lonely”; Chrysalis BREW Project’s Award for Excellence and The World’s Best Magazine’s Book of Excellence Award for “Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems”; and the Spotlyts Story Award from Spotlyts Magazine for «Apprenticed to the Night.»

Additionally, “Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems” achieved recognition as a 3rd Place Finalist in Chrysalis BREW Project’s Readers’ Choice Awards, 2024 – 2025.