Janice N. Harrington worked as a nursing home aide in college, and she drew on that experience to write “The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home.” This book-length collection of poems ...

Most of us do not think much of the frail elderly, the people who require constant care to get to the end of the day, near the end of their lives; still less do most of us think about their caregivers ...

In her second collection, The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home (BOA, 2011), Janice N. Harrington turns an unflinching eye to the world of those who have reached a final stage of life.

For me, December usually marks a special celebration: It’s the month when I work with my students at Centre Crest nursing home to edit, prepare and perform the poems we’ve been writing all fall. We ...