![\"Labor](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/web-Scan-228x300.jpg\" "\\"web")
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 received a communications degree from Pepperdine University.<\/p>\n
Married for almost 30 years, Morefield chose to travel extensively with her mother the last 10 years of her life. The two had just completed a cruise through the Baltics a few months prior to Morefield\u2019s diagnosis.<\/p>\n
She lived her life artfully and generously, always on the go, Baldridge said. In fact, when Morefield was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in November 2008, she had triumphantly walked off an 18-hole golf course two days prior. A nagging pain in her side prompted her to finally visit a doctor, and for the next two and a 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 Baldridge, who had enjoyed a collaborative relationship with her daughter, sharing first-draft poetry readings with her for decades. What was a surprise to Baldridge, she said, was the day her daughter gave her an assignment.<\/p>\n
In the preface to \u201cThe Warrior\u2019s Stance\u201d \u2013 Morefield\u2019s recently released chapbook that Baldridge edited \u2013 Baldridge describes the assignment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn one of her last conversations with her mother \u2026 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 Baldridge wrote.<\/p>\n
The first draft of Morefield\u2019s work amounted to about two-dozen poems, all piecing together the difficult journey she had undertaken. Baldridge said she thought she was done, but soon her son-in-law alerted her to many more poems he found in various stages of completed prose while perusing Morefield\u2019s personal journals.<\/p>\n
Morefield\u2019s husband hired someone to extract the poems from the journals, something Baldridge could have done but not without bearing witness to personal thoughts that she said she knew she would 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 to her daughter\u2019s privacy. As a minor compromise, Baldridge pulled several fragments from the journals, and included a few other poems written throughout Morefield\u2019s life to add context when needed.<\/p>\n
Baldridge said she went through each poem, each fragment and each line of prose with \u201ca fine-tooth comb,\u201d to ensure the line breaks, punctuation and spelling were accurate. \u00a0The finished chapbook contains 39 poems, and was a \u201cpainstaking and emotional\u201d task, Baldridge said, but something that makes her very proud.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a wonderful thing to be with her through the work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The title \u201cThe Warrior\u2019s Stance\u201d comes directly from two poems, a metaphor often assigned to those challenged with cancer. \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 man who was homeless and felt the need to sketch him upon returning home. Decades later, now screen-printed on the cover of \u201cThe Warrior\u2019s Stance\u201d 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 \u2013 pulled directly from the journals \u2013 to adorn the borders of each page in the chapbook. Morefield preferred to write on graph-lined notebooks and the fine-lined boxes are evident 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 deeper insight into the work.<\/p>\n The work ends with a poem written by Morefield\u2019s husband, which acts as a proper post-script as he uses 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 \u201cBy 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\u2019s intent as much as possible regarding line lengths, words, repetitions [and] dashes,\u201d Baldridge said. \u201c[The] big deal was did she really want ampersands, or should \u2018and\u2019 be spelled out? I\u2019ll find out when I next see her.\u201d<\/p>\n A publication party has been set for March 25 from 4 \u2013 7 p.m. at ion theatre company, located at 3704 Sixth Ave. in Hillcrest. RSVP to Baldridge at charb81@cox.net. To donate to the Colon Cancer Alliance in Morefield\u2019s name, visit ccalliance.org\/laura. For complete information on the book, visit thewarriorsstance.com<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Local author takes on task of sharing daughter\u2019s poetic journey through cancer By Morgan M. Hurley | SDUN Assistant Editor Established poet, author and theater critic Charlene Baldridge always expected her only daughter would one day publish Baldridge’s more personal writings posthumously. What Baldridge did not expect was the reverse: taking on the task of […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":245911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"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":[11549,11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245910","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=245910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Labor](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/TheWarriorsStance022213frontcover-159x300.jpeg\" "\\"TheWarriorsStance022213frontcover\\"")