{"id":236095,"date":"2013-03-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/the-warriors-stance-a-labor-of-love-2\/"},"modified":"2013-03-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T07:00:00","slug":"the-warriors-stance-a-labor-of-love-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/the-warriors-stance-a-labor-of-love-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Warrior’s Stance: A labor of love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local author takes on task of sharing daughter\u2019s poetic journey through cancer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Morgan M. Hurley | Downtown News Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Established poet, author, and SDCNN theater critic Charlene Baldridge always expected that her only daughter would one day publish her more personal works posthumously; what she didn\u2019t expect was to take on the task of publishing her daughter\u2019s works that way, not the reverse.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
(l-r) The poet, Laura Morefield, on a cruise with her mother shortly before her diagnosis. (Courtesy Charlene Baldridge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Laura Jeanne Morefield was an avid poet and writer in her own right, though she spent the majority of her career in banking and then philanthropy. A graduate of Madison High School in Clairemont Mesa, she went on to get a communications degree from Pepperdine University later in her life.<\/p>\n

Married for almost 30 years, Morefield chose to travel extensively with her mother the last 10 years of her life and the two had just completed a cruise through the Baltics a few months prior to her diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Morefield lived her life artfully and generously, always on the go, her mother said. In fact, when Morefield was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in November of 2008, she had triumphantly walked off an 18-hole golf course just two days prior.<\/p>\n

A nagging pain in her side prompted her to finally visit a doctor, and for the next two-and-one-half years, Morefield faced the most challenging battle of her life. Baldridge said she continued to play golf to the very end.<\/p>\n

Morefield\u2019s choice to document that battle was not a surprise to her mother, who had enjoyed a collaborative relationship with her daughter, sharing first-draft poetry readings with her for decades. What was a surprise to Baldridge was the day her daughter gave her an assignment.<\/p>\n

In the book\u2019s preface, Baldridge describes the assignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn one of her last conversations with her mother, Charlene Baldridge, Laura, a lifelong poet, expressed the wish that her post-diagnosis poems be collected and made into a chapbook. She believed them to be her best. These, then, are but a few fruits of the warrior\u2019s last years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baldridge\u2019s first draft of her daughter\u2019s work amounted to about two-dozen poems, all piecing together the difficult journey Morefield had undertaken. Baldridge said she thought she was done, but soon her son-in-law alerted her to the many more poems he found in various stages of completed prose while perusing her personal journals.<\/p>\n

Morefield\u2019s husband hired someone to \u201cextract\u201d the poems from the journals, something Baldridge could have done but not without bearing witness to personal thoughts in and around the poems that she knew she\u2019d be better left without knowing.<\/p>\n

Though the extraction amounted to 66 more poems that clearly fit the task at hand, Baldridge, after much thought and counsel, said she decided against using them out of respect for her daughter\u2019s privacy. As a minor compromise, Baldridge pulled nine or ten fragments and\/or poems from the journals and included a few others written throughout Morefield\u2019s life to add context when needed.<\/p>\n

Baldridge said she went through each poem, each fragment, each line of prose with \u201ca fine tooth comb,\u201d to ensure the line breaks, punctuation and spelling were accurate. The finished chapbook, titled “The Warrior\u2019s Stance,” contains 39 poems. It was a \u201cpainstaking and emotional\u201d task, but something Baldridge is very proud of.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The front cover of “The Warrior’s Stance” \u00a92013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt was a wonderful thing to be with her through the work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The title comes directly from two of the poems \u2013 a metaphor often assigned to those challenged with cancer, Baldridge said, as Morefield summed up her role in the battle for her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough definitely she was a pacifist and did not approve of that metaphor, she never found anything that applied better,\u201d Baldridge said.<\/p>\n

In a moment of serendipity during the editing process, Baldridge recalled that years before, she had a random encounter with a homeless man and felt the need to sketch him upon returning home.<\/p>\n

Now, decades later, screen-printed on the cover of “The Warrior\u2019s Stance” and dressed in Morefield\u2019s favorite colors, that random sketch has finally reached its destiny.<\/p>\n

Another unique and personal touch was the choice Baldridge made to use her daughter\u2019s cursive pulled directly from her journals to adorn the borders of each page in the chapbook.<\/p>\n

Morefield preferred to write on graph notebooks and the fine-lined boxes are evident in between her handwriting along the borders.<\/p>\n

As mother and confidant first, and now editor, Baldridge has carefully woven her daughter\u2019s journey together in a dramatic arc, and added notes when needed to assist the reader with even deeper insight to the work.\u00a0It is not hard while reading to realize just how challenging this must have been for her.<\/p>\n

The work ends with a poem written by Morefield\u2019s husband, titled “She Died Midsummer,” which acts as a proper post-script as he uses his late wife’s similar style and prose.<\/p>\n

The chapbook will come with a matching bookmark, and all the proceeds from the book will go to the Colon Cancer Alliance.<\/p>\n

“By some miraculous, mysterious process, the book was completed by mother suffering eyestrain and too many trips back to the scans, hoping to decipher words, make out punctuation and hew to Laura’s intent as much as possible regarding line lengths, words, repetitions, dashes etc.,\u201d Baldridge said. \u201c[The] big deal was, did she really want ampersands \u2013 or should \u2018and\u2019 be spelled out? I’ll find out when I next see her.”<\/p>\n

A publication party has been set for March 25, from 4-7 p.m. at ion theatre company, 3704 Sixth Ave. in Hillcrest. Refreshments will be served. If you\u2019d like to attend, RSVP to the editor, Charlene Baldridge, at\u00a0charb81@cox.net<\/a>. For more information about the chapbook, visit thewarriorsstance.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To donate to the Colon Cancer Alliance in Morefield\u2019s name, visit\u00a0ccalliance.org\/laura<\/a>. Baldridge also has a blog\u00a0morefieldandbaldridge.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Excerpts from The Warrior’s Stance, \u00a92013<\/h3>\n

The thing with brambles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, I planted Arapaho blackberries \u2013\u00a0just
\nseedlings. So delicate in their small tangle of green
\non tender stems. If experts are to be believed,
\nmy first crop of berries will be two springs hence.
\n The crop of cells that grew wild
\nin my bowels \u2013\u00a0that spread suckers to liver
\nand lung \u2013 experts have their predictions
\nabout that fruit, too. Few expect me to taste the distant
\nspring\u2019s berries.
\n So why plant them?
\nWhy turn the clay of our natural soil shovel by shovel,
\nmixing in the dark amendments? Why cultivate
\nand water and surround with natural deterrents
\nfrom out neighborhood\u2019s benign, cotton-raild marauders?
\n A more realistic woman, more
\npractical, might use the space instead for flowers
\nor greenery \u2013\u00a0even for the small comfort of ground cover
\nor the parsimonious sipping of desert grasses. I am not
\nshe. I am a woman who plants blackberries, not promised
\nto taste them. But hoping. Yes.
\n Hoping for the tiny burstings of dark fruit.<\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/p>\n

Excerpt from \u201cThe work at hand\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

A warrior keeps her back leg strong, connected
\nto the earth. She faces her hips forward.
\n She lifts hands and face skyward as
\nher front leg leans into the territory of the enemy
\nas far as, as long as, her breath will take her.<\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/p>\n

I am not my cancer (a journal fragment)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am not my cancer. I am me \u2013
\nlover of Dan, Child of God, squarer of
\nshoulders, digger of weeds and mistress
\nof words.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local author takes on task of sharing daughter\u2019s poetic journey through cancer Morgan M. Hurley | Downtown News Editor Established poet, author, and SDCNN theater critic Charlene Baldridge always expected that her only daughter would one day publish her more personal works posthumously; what she didn\u2019t expect was to take on the task of publishing […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":236096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"The Warrior's Stance: A labor of love","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11600,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-sdnews","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}