A Friend Who Knows the Tone

A FRIEND WHO KNOWS THE TONEA Friend Who Knows the Tone is a very personal book. Its author, a poet and writer, is a widow. In addition to her spotlighting for our time, a "treasure" from the "Spring and Autumn Period of Ancient China" which her editor has brought to light, namely, the tradition of chih-yin, (a Chinese word meaning "to know the tone") - she wrote this book for two reasons: to thank and honor him for making this tradition known, and for having helped her through her grief, in more ways than one.First of all, as her editor, (also a translator of Chinese literature - Mike O'Connor) he is the one who most directly assisted her in completing the three books which she felt compelled to write after her husband, Francis, died, in 2010. Their main title was Francis's request of her when he was dying:"Sing to Me and I Will Hear You." Writing these two books of poetry and A Love Story in prose felt like the most important thing she was called to do - to tell Francis's and her story - to leave their legacy of love.Moreover, just as her own earlier poems sustained her, by camouflaging or postponing the full brunt of her grief - so did reading her editor's works, such as The Basin, Poems from a Chinese Province take some of her attention away from her barely bearable grief. It is not surprising, then, that her gratitude to Mike O'Connor is unbounded. Written in the spirit of the chih-yin tradition, her thank you poems to him express her heartfelt, even loving gratitude for his accompanying her as editor and chih-yin/friend. Her late husband, she is certain, would do no less.In a sense, A Friend Who Knows the Tone is also a sequel, not only to the author's third book, Sing to Me and I Will Hear You - New Poems, in which she grapples with what it's like being a widow, but also to her two guest posts online: http://wowblog.me/category/life-as-a-widow/ A Widow's Journey, Part I and Part II. A sequel, because it goes further in revealing yet another way in which the author survived the loss of her beloved spouse.