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The Scarecrow of My Former Self
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 1, 2025
A beautiful, raw, needed collection about living with chronic illness. It avoids the typical ableist expectations of using our circumstance to merely inspire the non-disabled world, and instead honestly depicts the crushing weight of an illness like ME. So many including myself suffer from this disease, and so little is talked about it - anywhere - much less in literature. Sarah Stockton over turns stones of suffering and finds meaning as well as loss. This is a beautiful book. A story that deserves to be told and heard.
April 2, 2024
Sarah transforms her silent suffering into something searingly beautiful as her poems take the reflective reader on a journey through a chronic illness. The poems evoke a sense of loss, yet transformative beauty, acceptance, revolt, peace. This poignant compilation of poetry is not just for those with a chronic illness and those who care for them — it’s for all of us who share this planet.
March 1, 2024
In beautifully written poems The Scarecrow of My Former Self explores the long journey from diagnosis to learning to live with a chronic illness. These poems don't hold back, don't euphemize pain, are not afraid to reveal deep vulnerability. They are profoundly honest.
December 3, 2025
Wow! I read this twice in 2025, it's gorgeous.
This poetry is much more readable than many competitors-- more consistent sentence structure, use of spaces and punctuation, etc.
While the poems tend to be related to the author's chronic illness, concepts of depression, hope, pain, etc., are relatable to all readers. Strong nature themes increase readability for non-disabled readers.
Program topics: interpretive dance workshop; pair with The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness, The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness, or another NF/memoir book on chronic pain; poetry write-in; Poet Laureate events; art event, 3D or paper collage, to create your own representative scarecrow; voting tournament to select one poem to add to Poetry Walk (or, special poetry walk at one location, like Water Protectors YS event)-- make sure to include a virtual component!; bird ID program; pair with Mary Oliver.
Discussion prompts:
- See "Not a delusion" (p 13); in this poem and elsewhere, did anything prompt you to recognize ableism in thought patterns or stances that are well-accepted socially?
- "The way asking for help / generates its own exhaustion" (p 15)-- emotional exhaustion from feeling like a burden to a friend, or existential exhaustion that any possible improvement in symptoms is so distant, or literal/physical exhaustion from how teaching someone to do a task is, in the short term, more work than doing that task oneself, or other ways of being exhausted...
- "help me weave some dignity / from these abandoned hopes" (p 31)-- everyone has had to set aside an earlier imagined version of their future. In our go-getter culture of visualization and 5-year plans, this often feels like failure. Not getting a job directly after college, not marrying who or (by) when anticipated, infertility or pregnancy loss, divorce, etc.: not all life plan re-writing is illness-related. Does this line speak to any unanticipated changes in your own past?
-- (Sub-q) A rising tide lifts all boats. If we improve aspects of our culture because they are ableist, it would improve opportunities for everyone. Knowing that go-getter culture negatively impacts those with disabilities (and the families of people with disabilities), if we worked to improve, to remove the blame and guilt assigned to life-plan alterations, how would the situation improve for everyone else?
- "Forgive yourself for not healing. For not / helping. For not knowing how to start" (p 32)-- illuminates the ableism even in healing: the judgement and blame attached to a sick/disabled person not trying hard enough (not trialing the new supplement, new type of therapy, crystal, specialist; not researching nightly; not "working" at being a "good" sick person). See also p 39, #millions missing.
This poetry is much more readable than many competitors-- more consistent sentence structure, use of spaces and punctuation, etc.
While the poems tend to be related to the author's chronic illness, concepts of depression, hope, pain, etc., are relatable to all readers. Strong nature themes increase readability for non-disabled readers.
Program topics: interpretive dance workshop; pair with The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness, The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness, or another NF/memoir book on chronic pain; poetry write-in; Poet Laureate events; art event, 3D or paper collage, to create your own representative scarecrow; voting tournament to select one poem to add to Poetry Walk (or, special poetry walk at one location, like Water Protectors YS event)-- make sure to include a virtual component!; bird ID program; pair with Mary Oliver.
Discussion prompts:
- See "Not a delusion" (p 13); in this poem and elsewhere, did anything prompt you to recognize ableism in thought patterns or stances that are well-accepted socially?
- "The way asking for help / generates its own exhaustion" (p 15)-- emotional exhaustion from feeling like a burden to a friend, or existential exhaustion that any possible improvement in symptoms is so distant, or literal/physical exhaustion from how teaching someone to do a task is, in the short term, more work than doing that task oneself, or other ways of being exhausted...
- "help me weave some dignity / from these abandoned hopes" (p 31)-- everyone has had to set aside an earlier imagined version of their future. In our go-getter culture of visualization and 5-year plans, this often feels like failure. Not getting a job directly after college, not marrying who or (by) when anticipated, infertility or pregnancy loss, divorce, etc.: not all life plan re-writing is illness-related. Does this line speak to any unanticipated changes in your own past?
-- (Sub-q) A rising tide lifts all boats. If we improve aspects of our culture because they are ableist, it would improve opportunities for everyone. Knowing that go-getter culture negatively impacts those with disabilities (and the families of people with disabilities), if we worked to improve, to remove the blame and guilt assigned to life-plan alterations, how would the situation improve for everyone else?
- "Forgive yourself for not healing. For not / helping. For not knowing how to start" (p 32)-- illuminates the ableism even in healing: the judgement and blame attached to a sick/disabled person not trying hard enough (not trialing the new supplement, new type of therapy, crystal, specialist; not researching nightly; not "working" at being a "good" sick person). See also p 39, #millions missing.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews