The Sky Begins at Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body [Paperback]

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2009

I cannot figure out who I am as a body these days, writes Caryn Mirriam- Goldberg in this powerful, tender and humorous memoir about resiliency and love in the face of cancer. Mirriam- Goldberg braves breast cancer, the breast cancer genetic mutation and the loss of a parent by connecting with an eclectic Midwest community, the land and sky, and a body undergoing vast renovation. Along the way, she swims with stingrays in the Gulf of Mexico, searches for cream puff s for a Pennsylvania funeral, leads a group fi ghting to protect ecologically-essential land in Kansas, and helps students fi nd their own voice in Vermont. In searching for a new definition of the erotic through our awareness of nature, this memoir illuminates how our bodies are our most local address on the earth.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A marvelous storyteller, a wise woman, and a teacher in the true sense of the word, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg takes us on a challenging yet ultimately joyful journey that leaves us fundamentally changed. Anyone who reads this memoir (and you must!) will never forget it. --Harriet Lerner, Ph.D, Author of The Dance of Anger

(Starred Review) If you're going to write about your breast cancer diagnosis, it doesn't hurt being the poet laureate of Kansas. With a poet's eye and lyricism, Mirriam-Goldberg describes all the emotions and trials patients and their families experience, allowing readers to see past the struggle to the richness beyond. Highly recommended. --Library Journal (starred review)

About the Author

CARYN MIRRIAM-GOLDBERG is the Poet Laureate of Kansas and a long-time bioregionalist, poet, and writer. She is the author of three collections of poetry, Animals in the House, Lot s Wife, and Reading the Body; an award-winning writing book, Write Where You Are; and the editor of e Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader. She founded and coordinates Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College, where she teaches, and she facilitates writing workshops, particularly for people living with serious illness. With rhythm and blues singer-songwriter Kelley Hunt, she also performs and leads Brave Voice writing and singing workshops and retreats. Caryn helped found the Kansas Area Watershed Council, the Continental Bioregional Congress, and the Transformative Language Arts Network. She makes her home with her family just south of Lawrence, Kansas, in the Wakarusa River valley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 229 pages
• Publisher: Ice Cube Books; 1st edition (August 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888160438
• ISBN-13: 978-1888160437
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,074,319 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the Poet Laureate of Kansas and the author or editor of 11 books. She founded Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College (where she teaches), a master's degree in using writing, storytelling, performance, singing and other words of language aloud or on the page for community building, personal transformation, culture shift and more. A long-time community writing workshop facilitator for many populations, she also leads Brave Voice (http://BraveVoice.com) writing and singing retreats with rhythm and blues singer Kelley Hunt, co-writes songs and performs collaboratively with Hunt. Her books encompass many genres: four collections of poetry, several anthologies of poetry and prose, an ecological memoir on cancer and community, a beloved writing guide for teens, and other works. Caryn makes her home just south of Lawrence, Kansas where the deer and no antelope (but many turkey) roam. http://CarynMirriamGoldberg.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A memoir of cancer and survival, January 25, 2010

By 

Story Circle Book Reviews - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sky Begins at Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body (Paperback)

After reading Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg's memoir about her battles with breast cancer, my own trauma of being a breast cancer survivor twice over seemed almost trivial in comparison. Her uplifting story is riveting.

The first paragraph in the preface sets the tone of her book:

"I cannot figure out who I am as a body these days. I look in the mirror each morning, each night. I look right into the scars, trying to read them like the dreams I have at night of driving around lost for hours, or not being able to make a call on a pay phone without punching in the wrong numbers. There is always an emergency."

Mirriam-Goldberg's memoir is set on the spacious prairie landscapes of Kansas, as indicated by the title, The Sky Begins at Your Feet. At the most productive stage of her life--teaching at Goddard College in Vermont twice a year, parenting three children, involved in the founding and organization of a conservation group, and continuing with her writing career--she is diagnosed as having breast cancer.

This begins her horrific and courageous saga of survival. She endures a lumpectomy, debilitating radiation and chemotherapy, while maintaining her sense of humor--a buzz cut followed by fake bird tattoos decorating her hairless head. Then she learns that her BRCA1 genetic mutation test is positive, an indication that expands her risks of breast and ovarian cancers. She confronts the sad realization that she will lose both of her breasts. Mirriam-Goldberg faces this, as well as the death of her father from pancreatic cancer, with amazing strenght and resolve buttressed by her loving, compassionate family and friends, and her close spiritual connection to the Kansas prairie.

I could relate to the fear and uncertainty that a cancer diagnosis brings. At the beginning of her memoir, I found I had difficulty keeping my own memories from bumping up against the author's, but as I turned more and more pages, the poetic, personal, and humorous tone imparted a wonderful flow of awe and admiration for Mirriam-Goldberg's storytelling genius. She is a true hero, and has written a must-read book for those of us who need and cherish one.

by Brenda Osborne
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved the Book, very inspiring and funny, November 1, 2009

By 

Lauren Pacheco "Laurenpdm" (Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sky Begins at Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body (Paperback)

I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who has gone through or knows anyone that has gone through cancer, it really digs into the true very sad and funny side of the little things this woman goes through while dealing with the death of her dad. Very funny with LOL moments galore.

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading, November 10, 2011

By 

Denise L. Lowweso (KC area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sky Begins at Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body (Paperback)

This is a moving, essential book that made me laugh and cry at once. Caryn Goldberg captures the experience of cancer from diagnosis to cure so well. Anyone can appreciate the humor and information.