Depression's Child, by Junetta Gillespie

Depression’s Child. Poems by Junetta Gillespie. Perfect bound with French folds. 5.5 x 8 inches. 77 pages. ISBN 978-1-938928-05-5. 2016. $15.00.

Junetta Gillespie (1930-2016) transferred to Stanford as a junior “primarily to study creative writing and go to beach parties, neither of which were available at Swathmore.” During her junior year, she spent “hours each week in a state of awe mingled with a healthy dose of terror” in a poetry seminar taught by Yvor Winters. She continued to write while marriage, motherhood, and graduate degrees filled her life. This is her first book.

For the curious: Sadly, Junetta did not live long enough to be able to read her poems in her first book. But you can do what she was unable to.

"I love Junetta, and her poems, because there is such a literal sense of this person, this interesting and insightful person, reaching me through the years, through a poem. A reminder that poems can do that, and the importance of writing them, and publishing them!" — Deb Akers