The Door at the End of Everything
The Door at the End of Everything
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Written while Lynda Monahan was hospital writer-in-residence at the Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert, working often on the adult and youth mental health wards, the tight, pared poems in The Door at the End of Everything gives voice to and honor those living with mental illness, speaking to not only the suffering but also the courage and hope that is so clearly there as well.

Several of the poems and poetry sequences have seen publication in various literary journals, including Grain, The Society, The New Quarterly, Transition, Bareback, and Dalhousie Review, and in the poetry anthologies Writing Menopause (Inanna Publications), Lummox Anthology of Canadian Poetry, Worth More Standing (Caitlin Press), the Apart pandemic anthology (Saskatchewan Writers Guild), and Line Dance (Burton House Books), and in various tanka publications such as Atlas Poetica, A Hundred Gourds, and Gusts. A series of online readings from this collection, created with the help of a Canada Council grant, are available on YouTube.

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Book Details

Genre: 

  • Poetry

Age Level: 

  • Adult
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The Door at the End of Everything is a compilation of poems penned by Lynda Monahan that directs our minds to the unfathomable pain experienced by people living with a psychological health challenge. The poetry written by Lynda Monahan draws us into a realistic world where suffering is faced by those with mental health issues and where depression seems to take away their joy and happiness;  for some, suicide is viewed as the only solution. The book is divided into three parts.

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Lynda Monahan’s poems in The Door at the End of Everything whisper cool hope over the raw road-rash of the miseries of life. With vivid speech, she takes the reader through things unspeakable. This is lived experience: depression, anxiety, abuse, fear, loneliness, grief, and mental illness. These are hard things. But these are real things. Monahan gives expression to things that are difficult to express, both by those who suffer them and for those who are trying to help. There is so much hurt in these lyrics of life, but there is hope.

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