“Little Stone, Little Stone” by Jennifer Schomburg Kanke

Little Stone, Little Stone (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2026) by Jennifer Schomburg Kanke chronicles the poet’s deeply personal journey through ovarian cancer while also honoring the lives of well-known women who died from the disease. Often called the “silent killer” because its symptoms are subtle and frequently misdiagnosed, ovarian cancer becomes both subject and shadow throughout this collection. Kanke conveys frustration and bitterness at the years her symptoms were dismissed or overlooked by medical professionals. This collection will resonate with readers who value lyrical language as well as those who have experienced cancer—either personally or through someone they love.

The title poem, written for Canadian actress and director Cayle Chernin, centers on the image of ripples spreading outward from a stone dropped into water. The metaphor aptly reflects how Chernin’s legacy endures, particularly through awards supporting women in the performing arts. The closing lines—“who chose going down with glamour / to staying afloat clinging weakly to each painful day”—suggest Chernin’s decision to complete her final film rather than devote herself fully to treatment.

A recurring theme in the collection is the uneasy surrender of control to the medical establishment. In “Betterphor,” Kanke writes: “we do / as we’re told, follow orders, good little soldiers / trusting our commanders and their methods are safe / beyond sponsored studies and researcher bias.” The language of war appears frequently, casting patients as soldiers while exposing the emotional and physical toll of treatments that must destroy in order to heal.

Kanke also memorializes numerous public figures lost to ovarian cancer, from Joan Hackett and Laura Nyro to Gilda Radner and Dinah Shore, among many others. The sheer length of this list underscores the reach of the disease. As one poem acknowledges, “I could fill a million books / and still leave someone out.” Yet the poet counters this litany of loss with a quiet hope: “May our names be on no one’s list / for a very, very long time,” followed by a tribute to survivors.

In the prose poem “Pain Manager,” the speaker refuses opioid medication—not only because of family histories of addiction, but because “Pain reminds me to be human.” The poem also reveals a personality driven by productivity, one that must relearn the value of rest: “nothing’s wrong with soft slippers and a really good TV show, that rest is not the most vile of all four-letter words.”

Anger and dark humor animate poems such as “My Oncologist Demands My Origin Story,” where the speaker confronts the impulse to assign blame—whether through diet, clothing, or life choices. That anger intensifies in “Correlation,” which challenges the suggestion that childlessness increases risk: “like they’re trying to say it was our own fault / and not the other way around.”

Kanke’s technical skill is especially evident in the crown of sonnets, “My Crowning Glory,” which traces her experience from diagnosis through treatment. These poems capture the “logistical nightmares,” the shock of rapid surgical intervention, and the physical transformations of chemotherapy—hair loosening in her hands, skin reacting “as if the red / of angry cells is seeping from [her] skin.”

Imagery of absence and rupture recurs throughout the collection. In “Holevaries,” wordplay underscores the bodily loss after surgery, when “just space remains.” Even after treatment, uncertainty lingers. Minor symptoms provoke lasting anxiety: “When something has symptoms so common, so ignorable, / how do you know what’s an overreacting?” The poem “Poem That’s Just an Excuse to Tell You the Symptoms of Ovarian Cancer” details those warning signs, emphasizing both their ordinariness and their potential danger.

One of the book’s most significant contributions is its potential to raise awareness. Readers may become more attentive to their bodies and to the subtle warning signs of ovarian cancer. Yet, as Kanke makes clear, the disease resists easy detection or simple answers.

Jennifer Schomburg Kanke

Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, originally from Columbus, Ohio, moved to Tallahassee, Florida, in 2010. Her work has appeared in New Ohio Review, Pleiades, Massachusetts Review, Shenandoah, and Crab Orchard Review. Her previous collection, The Swellest Wife Anyone Ever Had (Kelsay Books), explores the life of an Appalachian housewife. She also hosts the Meter Cute interview series on the Meter & Mayhem Substack and YouTube channel and serves on the board of Anhinga Press.