Description
Finalist, The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2026
Brainstorming
by Carolyn Martin
After a debilitating stroke hit her in August 2025, Carolyn Martin was thrilled to discover she still had her voice and her ability to write poems. This chapbook is a collection of ”stroke narratives” that document her physical, emotional, and spiritual experiences during her initial recovery. They are complemented by lyrical poems that revel in the inner and outer worlds she has explored for years. Since every poem is, in essence, a brainstorm, she hopes these poems will stir up a life-nurturing storm in readers.
Portland author, poet and podcaster, Emily Newberry interviews Carolyn Martin about her stroke, her recovery and her new book. You can listen to this moving episode HERE
Early Praise
There are many ways to go through a storm: battening down, being swept away, dragging anchor. In her incredible new book Brainstorming, poet Carolyn Martin has chosen to travel with all sails beautifully unfurled—eyes, mind, and heart open. And with Martin at the helm, this ship is unsinkable. As the poems journey through her internal and external landscapes, they are infused with inspiriting life. Martin asks, “Is there a world somewhere that’s wide enough / for all the joy we were born to generate?” She and her vital book open this necessary world for us. Even before we reach the last page, we are gratefully answering, “Yes! Oh, buoyantly Yes!”
––ANNIE LIGHTHART, author of Pax
Dazzling in its execution, Carolyn Martin’s eloquent Brainstorming brings to mind William Faulkner’s claim that we humans have the ability not only to endure extreme adversity, not only to survive, but to prevail. And prevail Martin does, in these poems and in her life, against the traumatic physical and mental dislocations wrought by a massive stroke that left her left side weakened and her spirit at sea. With masterful objectivity, unsinkable playfulness, and deep compassion, Martin recreates for us the details of a journey we cannot begin to imagine: progressing from physical pain, from the shock and grief of “never again,” to recalculating every single move she once took for granted, to ever‑increasing gratitude, acceptance, and, yes, joy. This book has enlarged and deepened me, and I cannot praise it enough.
––INGRID WENDT, recipient of the Oregon Book Award, author of Keeping It All Afloat
Brainstorming, the latest book by Carolyn Martin, bears witness to trauma through the lens of poetry. A stroke survivor whose poetry is raw, unpretentious, and unfiltered, Martin offers readers poems that are deeply personal and, at times, powerfully spiritual. The versification traverses surprise, sorrow, sheer grit, and self-determination that attests to the poet’s zest for life. Brainstorming is filled with the kind of poetry that speaks to the compassionate need for a healing heart. Carolyn Martin stands among the finest of Oregon poets. This collection bears witness to this attribution.
––EMMETT WHEATFALL, author of Contradictions from an Uncertain Silence
About the Author
From New Jersey English teacher to international management trainer; from author of business books to poetry collections; from work addict to devotee of the Spanish proverb, “It is beautiful to do nothing and rest afterwards,” Carolyn Martin is blissfully retired—and resting—in Clackamas, Oregon.
Although a stroke in August 2025 weakened her body. Martin’s mind remains strong. She still embraces poetry as her way of interacting with the world—in images, rhythms, sounds, and intensities of language. That is why she continues to pursue the joyful challenge of translating experience into as few words as possible. In doing so, she embraces Anne Sexton’s dictate: “One of my secret instructions to myself as a poet is: Whatever you do, don’t be boring.”
Martin’s poems have appeared in more than 200 publications around the world, and she has six full-length collections and three chapbooks under her creative belt. In addition, she was the winner of the 2025 Hudson-Fowler Prize for Poetry from the University of Central Arkansas.
Website: carolynmartinpoet.com
Candice Louisa Daquin –
Reviewed by Candice Louisa Daquin
(Review first appeared on Oregon Poetry Association website)
This reviewer met Carolyn Martin eight years ago on an anthology project, knowing nothing more than what her fluid, feeling poetry projected. In subsequent years, it became apparent, Martin was an incredibly resilient, positive-focused human being. So, alongside others familiar with her energy, it was a great shock to hear that she suffered a deadly basilar artery stroke.
Brainstorming is the poetry Martin crafted through her ordeal. In her own words: “Brainstorming is filled with ‘stroke narratives’ that record my physical, emotional, and spiritual experiences during the initial stages of recovery.”
Unflinchingly. this potent collection is both a survivor’s story and a very human journey through unexpectedly deep waters. It is not easy reading what Martin has gone through, but it’s a liminal testimony to the process of recovery. As I read Brainstorming, I felt both tears and joy. Like the best of Mary Oliver’s work, it is in the balance of finding the positive in the midst of a storm that we recognize our collective humanity.
For example, in “From Hospital to Rehab,” Martin recalls not being able to wash for seven days in the hospital and arriving at a rehab center where Ripeness is all I have…. This is especially poignant for any of us who have experienced the absence of basic things.
This poem also talks about the loss of modesty as Martin deals with diapers and other horrors that unfortunately cannot be avoided. It is painful to read this; but, at the same time, Martin shares a spirit of gratitude for the gentle men who shower her, enabling us to inhabit her gains along with her pains.
Never succumbing to self-pity, Martin writes evocatively, beautifully, and memorably. Most poignantly, she identifies what is lost, such as the chores I prided myself on / belong to someone else (“Moving to My New Neighborhood” ). The little erasures that erase selfhood must be unearthed and faced. And this what this collection is about: for Martin, on a deeply personal level, but also for us all.
None of us are getting out of this life alive. Yet it is in the journey, the beloved ritual of living, that binds us together. Martin’s own glue, given how much she’s had to fight her way back to walking and functioning, adheres to poetry, an incredible feat which she’s likely to downplay.
What I return to most in this collection is the revealed vulnerability, which many poets will not let us see, but Martin’s journey of truth requires. For example, in “Morning Ritual,” she says
I suggest it would have been better if I died,
but you look at me horrified,
affirming this journey is ours to share.
Which of us behind closed doors haven’ had this conversation––or one day will? And whilst there is an inevitable horror here, it is in the last line, ours to share, that binds a sky of hopefulness to this honesty.
It’s no surprise then that Martin evokes Zen Buddhism in many of her poems, not least is the deeply emotive, but equally whimsical “Wheelchair Buddhist” where she says: We are what we think, the Master declared. Such contemplation around recovery with the fear “this stroke will last through eternity” doesn’t feel manufactured or prescriptive. It feels like an unfiltered, pure journey; at times heart clenching, but definably human at its heart.
It struck me as ironic that we often learn the most valuable things later in life. Then I had to stop and acknowledge, life isn’t linear. It’s a series of experiences. As such, Martin’s insights don’t come from being 80, because plenty of 80-year-olds shut down. People of all ages do. It comes from the investment the poet’s made in herself to stay open, like a firework brightening darkness with the illumination of her discoveries.
Martin invites us on her journey, not as witnesses, but as fellow journeyers who own the curiosity of children and wisdom of those who know their time here is fleeting but meaningful, especially when we stay open.
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Reviewer’s Bio
Candice Louisa Daquin is an Egyptian/French immigrant working as a trauma psychotherapist and editor in San Antonio, Texas. She is currently managing editor with Lit Fox Books, associate editor at Life & Legends, and reviews editor for Austin Poetry Review. Daquin’s award-winning novel The Cruelty centers on locating justice and personal agency in survival. http://www.candicelouisadaquin.com
Jean P Harkin –
Carolyn Martin compared her devastating stroke in 2025 to a tornado that wrapped around her body and changed her life. She has astonished herself and her many fans that she has used the misfortune of the stroke as a springboard for one of her best poetry books yet. Her clever mind has survived, as she uses her many talents with language to express poetry of frustration, reality, gratitude, wisdom, faith, hope, and much more. She shows us how unsinkable and inventive she is.
I love this inspiring book so much I’m already into the second reading of it. I nominate Carolyn Martin for Oregon poet laureate!
Rona Petersen –
Being a Friend and Neighbor Of Carolyn this poetry book meant so much to me personally. I watch the ambulance take away. I visited her in the rehab and visit now as neighbors. After reading the book, I told her I laughed. And I cried.Carolyn is a remarkable person, a fantastic poet, and I love her to death. You are an inspiration to all of us. Keep up the good work. I can’t wait till the next book comes out.
Sharryn McCann –
I was moved every Sunday by Carolyn’s journey fighting her way back from a stroke. She found the positive in every situation. I was greatly inspired by her words. I am now enjoying revisiting each poem. I have another friend who suffered a stroke several years ago and has come back with flying colors. I have purchased him a book also.