Nothing strains family relationships like Alzheimer's. As her mother begins her descent into dementia, Joan Kantor must assume a challenging role. Layers of past and present become a complicated reality that she must untangle for both of them.

"Fading into Focus" is Kantor's unique memoir of their relationship told through a collection of over fifty poems. Through the flexibility of verse, Kantor dips into different moments and memories, offering raw insights into her frustration, guilt, and confusion as she struggles to understand who her mother is and how that knowledge affects her as...

When there is just the thinnest thread of hope, what is it that keeps someone holding on?

In Holding It Together: Surviving a Legacy of Mental Illness, award-winning poet Joan Kantor tells the story of how she did just that and, in so doing, gives others suffering from mental illness a sense of validation and hope. Kantor, who struggled with severe clinical depression and anxiety before finding the right treatment, chronicles her journey in a collection that, while sad and at times even desperate, is full of honesty, passion, and dignity.

Kantor's work is a...