Founded twenty years ago by poet, memoirist, and clinical psychologist Joan Cusack Handler, CavanKerry Press has published fine literary work by established and emerging writers focused on the pursuit of understanding what it means to be human through insightful, accessible writing. This unique collection looks back at CavanKerry's first two decades with excerpts from each of the one hundred books in its publishing catalog, featuring poems and memoirs that capture the heart of living-through life's joys, illnesses, and moments of both gratitude and challenge. This collection features work by renowned writers of contemporary poetry and memoir such as David Cho, Robert Cording, Ross Gay, John Haines, Joan Cusack Handler, Marcus Jackson, Gray Jacobik, January Gill O'Neil, Jack Ridl, Mary Ruefle, Maureen Seaton, Jack Wiler, Baron Wormser, and many others. Places We Return To is the perfect introduction to CavanKerry's catalog, representing the deeply resonant writing for which the Press is known. Several authors in the CavanKerry library have gone on to find acclaim as poets laureate, Pushcart recipients, and finalists in national prizes. Places We Return To is a collection of work of the highest caliber.

Freedom and awakening of an adolescent, Bronx bred, Irish Catholic girl

In Orphans, a verse memoir, poet psychologist Joan Cusack Handler explores our most primitive and ambivalent relationships-those with aging parents-meanwhile confronting her own mortality. In a life lesson we're often unprepared for, Handler presents the reversal of roles and the eruption of unresolved conflicts that persist from childhood.