Vancouver author Jane Munro explores grief in forthcoming book, Open Every Window

The Griffin-award-winning poet turned to prose to help cope with her husband’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and subsequent deterioration

By Gail Johnson

JANE MUNRO, WHO won the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize for her collection Blue Sonoma, has a new book coming out that plumbs the depths of her grief upon seeing her husband become diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Open Every Window (Douglas & McIntyre) is a memoir of the local writer’s experience witnessing her spouse, Bob (20 years her senior), age, deteriorate, and approach death.

Munro, whose other books include 2020’s Glass Float (Brick Books), frames her prose with brief observations of the moon, from a new moon in Pune, India, to the subsequent new moon in Vancouver, her home. She explores sorrow, love, regret, and pain; she also delves into identity, society’s expectations of women, and how her role as a caregiver diminishes that as a writer, yoga practitioner, mother, and grandmother.

Through writing, Iyengar yoga, and the lunar cycle, Munro finds ways to cope without collapsing.

Open Every Window will be published on September 25.

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