The Well-Versed Parent

Child Development, Parenting, Poetry $15.00

ISBN: 978-1-930835-10-8

The Well-Versed Parent

by Jane E. Hunter, MD

From Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, author of
Kitchen Table Wisdom & My Grandfather’s Blessings:

“Dr. Hunter has created a book of exquisite insight into the
feelings, hopes and dreams that lie beneath the parenting
experience. A wise and beautiful book of essays and poetry
for parents of all ages. And grandparents too!”

For more than two decades Jane E. Hunter, MD, a pediatrician and mother, sat in her blue doctor’s chair and treated children, conferred with parents, and provided guidance for the journey through childhood.

In her office and on home and hospital visits she listened to the strengthening rhythms of each growing family, attuned to the seismic adjustments parents and children make that are barely perceptible on the surface. Hunter found that the “distilled and genuine language of poetry” authentically expresses these deeper experiences of parenthood.

This collection of fifty poems explores the emotional and physical shifts of parenting. The combined wisdom of more than forty poets, including Sylvia Plath, Naomi Shihab Nye, Gary Snyder and Sharon Olds, subtly ex-pose the joys and fears families feel but rarely discuss. Prefaced with a blend of Hunter’s anecdotes and essays on child development, each chapter honors a moment of transformation for children and their parents. This poet-pediatrician’s book is a unique and powerful treatise on raising children, offering a new language of love for families to share.

Jane E. Hunter, MD is a pediatrician known to her patients and their families as Dr. Jane. She has lived most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area, growing up in Oakland, and attending Stanford University for her undergraduate and medical education. For thirty years she was a partner in a small group pediatric practice in Berkeley, where she and her husband, Bill Hunter, raised two children and where she still lives. She began reading and writing poetry fifteen years ago while recovering from a serious illness, and continues to explore how words, written and spoken, can connect and heal. She currently participates in The Healer’s Art course for medical students at the UCSF and UC Berkeley medical schools.