Forever the Last Time

Susan McKnight is an administrator of the Courts Technology Integrated Justice Project at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.

In Forever the Last Time, Jim Slominski takes the reader on a candid
trip through his family life. He offers loving portraits of his wife,
Mary, and his two children, Maya and Jake, and allows the reader to
share in both the happy and sad moments. For example, he shares the
elation he felt when his son Jake, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy,
was able to thoroughly enjoy his 11th birthday. He also shares Jake’s
difficult birth during which the umbilical cord got a stranglehold on
the infant. Throughout all the poems, happy, worried, or sad, the main
theme is all-encompassing love.

Interspersed with the more personal offerings are warm and lovely
descriptions of the local landscape around the area of
Niagara-on-the-Lake. At times the poet seems to pause and wonder why
life has taken certain turns, but there is always the closeness and love
of his family to set him straight.

Slominski is the author of The Wind Is a Tall Man Striding, and his
work has appeared in several Canadian literary journals. In this gentle
and powerful collection of poems, he exhibits an honest appreciation for
family.