“What’s most remarkable about Wendy Drexler’s Harvest of What Remains isn’t just that it’s a thoughtful and technically inventive collection of poems about Alzheimer’s disease, but that it’s so compassionate and thoroughly—carefully and caringly—observed. These are essentially sad poems, often self-critical, but they’re not depressing. By paying such close attention, not only to the actual symptoms of the disease, but also—without understating how difficult that can sometimes be—to how the poet herself comes to learn the most helpful and sympathetic ways to respond to those symptoms, these poems—truly love poems—become extremely life-affirming. This is a book that helps us get better at being human.”
—Lloyd Schwartz, author of He Tells His Mother What He’s Working On
About Wendy Drexler
Wendy Drexler is a recipient of a 2022 artist fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is the author of three previous collections: Western Motel (Turning Point, 2012), Before There Was Before (Iris Press, 2017), and Notes from the Column of Memory (Terrapin, 2022). Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, J Journal, Mid-American Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, The Sun, and The Threepenny Review, among others. She was awarded the 2025 E.E. Cummings prize from the New England Poetry Club. A recipient of the Juror’s Prize for Art on the Trails, Southborough, MA, in 2021, Wendy served as poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, from 2018-2023, and as programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club from 2016–2024. She currently serves on the Club’s advisory board. (photo credit Debbie Milligan)