Pacific Prescription: Leukemia Cyclone by Magdalena Louise Hirt

In her most overwhelming collection yet–Pacific Prescription—Maggie Hirt has taken on the full impact of being willing without hesitation to save the life of her brother. This is poetry for anyone with even a twitch of empathy and an itch of curiosity. Hirt lives a life most of us discover only in dream, aboard a sailing vessel where she lives all over the watery globe with her husband and children. On another idyllic day, she is informed that her brother has leukemia. They test her blood. She’s a match. Without hesitation she says, “Yes,” to a transfusion and is at his side. The poems move from a stunningly magical evocation of her world at sea to that of terror. I will tell you the ending. She’s back aboard, her brother recovering, the ship, her family back “sailing and away from it all” yet carrying it all. Why tell you? Because the book is asking you to enter this personal world altering experience. The poet doesn’t want us caught up in wondering if it all works out. Hirt’s work has always been arresting. In this collection, she has developed a fascinating use of line and form to evoke and embody roiling emotional tidal waves. Pacific Prescription is a collection torn from the heart, yet it is never self-involved. Instead, we are. Are we ever.

—Jack Ridl, author of Practicing to Walk Like a Heron, named finest collection of poetry by ForeWord Reviews, and All at Once, to be published by CavanKerry Press, autumn of 2024

Every sailor faces stormy weather and, on many voyages, they encounter storms with no escape. This leaves only one option: face the gale head-on. To do this with success, one must assemble a wholehearted crew to rally around a single purpose —weather the storm to save the vessel! Just like sailing, life has its own storms; some can be navigated, while others are unavoidable. When a storm raged into my life in the form of AML Leukemia, I had no escape. Like a sailor watching the dark clouds gather and winds build, knowing what turbulence lies ahead, I listened to doctors and looked to my wholehearted crew. Along with my assembled crew of supportive family and friends, we pointed our ship, my ship, into the storm. Our one cause—save the vessel, my vessel.  My sister Maggie was fast to keep me from sinking, volunteering to donate stem cells to save my life. I believe, just as she eagerly underwent hardships so I could survive my storm, in Pacific Prescription: Leukemia Cyclone, Maggie has keenly communicated the highs and lows of living dreams and helping others live theirs, promoting leukemia awareness. Follow her poems as she takes you on a journey from ocean to hospital and back to ocean again.    

–Benjamin Schakel (brother)

This is a love story in poems, from a woman whose loves are far-reaching. She launches us into her passion for ocean and returns us there after a global voyage of sea-faring and life-saving with and for her family. This is vivid, reflective writing from a perceptive and compassionate mother, sister, sailor and, above all, poet. 

–Mandy Haggith, writer