Randi Schalet is a retired psychologist and writer based in Berkeley, California. Her work examines addiction, motherhood, regret, and the long afterlife of grief. Her essays and poems have appeared in numerous literary journals. This is her debut poetry collection.

PRAISE:

Randi Schalets beautiful poems to and about her son in The Last Things Ill Remember are spells and incantations to him, to grief, to herself. They are like the ones she writes about in her poem Painted Turtles, a book she sent to him in the Suffolk House of Corrections a mother searching for something to transform you.

Susan Vespoli, author of Blame It on the Serpent and One of Them Was Mine.

Using devastating intimate details, Randi Schalet brings her beloved dead son alive again with words so that we can see him, know him, not just as another addict who died of his disease, but as a lively, complicated man. This book is a living testimony to all the people, and all their parents and families who find themselves in similar situations. Love and grief are two sides of the same coin, and this book honors both.

Alison Luterman, author of Desire Zoo and Hard Listening