If I Were Going to Stay

More about the book

Two months before Jeanne died of cancer in 2019, she made a list of things to be done after her death. Along with instructions to give books, jewelry and paintings to family and friends, was the Love poems — Gather them, investigate self-publishing, share with friends and family.Her husband, Matthew Meselson, did not know of the list until after Jeanne died. No one, not even the four women in Jeanne’s writing group of thirty years, knew that Jeanne wrote poetry. The 78 poems in this book, remarkable for their emotional power, complex intelligence, and beauty of the words, are selected from 145 poems Meselson found among Jeanne’s papers and in her notebooks. The earliest of these is dated 1972, the latest 2016. Most are not dated. Some are typed, most are hand-written. Several, not included here, contain indecipherable words. The poems in this collection have been only lightly edited, for consistency of format. Meselson has arranged them as best he could to reflect the course of Jeanne’s life.