|a Poets, American |y 20th century |v Biography. This ebook features an extended biography of May Sarton. Both uplifting and cathartic, it sweeps us along on Sarton's pilgrimage inward. Journal of a Solitude is a moving and profound meditation on creativity, oneness with nature, and the courage it takes to be alone. Sarton's garden is her great, abiding joy, sustaining her through seasons of psychic and emotional pain. She confesses her fears, her disappointments, her unresolved angers. She likens writing to 'cracking open the inner world again,' which sometimes plunges her into depression. She shares insights about everyday life in the quiet New Hampshire village of Nelson, the desire for friends, and need for solitude-both an exhilarating and terrifying state. In her bravest and most revealing memoir, Sarton casts her keenly observant eye on both the interior and exterior worlds. 'Loneliness is the poverty of self solitude is richness of self.' -May Sarton May Sarton's parrot chatters away as Sarton looks out the window at the rain and contemplates returning to her 'real' life-not friends, not even love, but writing. wise and warm' journal of time spent in her New Hampshire home alone with her garden, her books, the seasons, and herself (Eugenia Thornton, Cleveland Plain Dealer ). Each deeply felt entry in the journal, written between 19, is laced with poignancy and honesty as she grapples with a cold reception for her latest novel, the sad descent of a close friend into senility, and other struggles.ĭespite the trials of this one painful year, Sarton writes of her progression toward a hard-won renewal, achieved through good friendships, the levity provided by her cherished dog, and peaceful days in her garden.Ī candid account of Sarton's revival from personal darkness back into light, Recovering is another stunning entry in the author's irrepressible oeuvre.The poet and author's 'beautiful.

In Recovering, Sarton focuses on her sixty-sixth year-one marked by the turmoil of a mastectomy, the end of a treasured relationship, and the loneliness that visits a life of chosen solitude.

An affecting diary of one year's hardships and healing, by one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary memoiristsįor decades, readers have celebrated May Sarton's journals for their candid look at relationships, success and failure, communion with nature, and the curious stages of aging.

May sarton recovering a journal