Books by Marilyn McVicker
Featured Work
I Still Sing Your Lullabies:
A mother’s love & loss
Long Field Publications, 2025
This is a devastating story, the marginalized voice of mothers who lost custody of their children. This is a story of families torn apart by laws that favored fathers, over loving and attentive mothers. This is a tragic account of women who were targeted, women who lost alimony, child support, and the custody of their children. This is the story of children who grew up with fathers who had not previously provided care, fathers who sought custody only to dodge alimony and child support payments. This is the story of fathers who wanted control, and not the daily tasks associated with parenting.
These women and their children, were forever changed. The after-effects of this action, the historic scope of this oppression, needs to be recognized and brought to public attention. It is as pertinent and vital today, as ever. The depiction of this injustice needs to be told and re-told.
Long Field Hollow
Long Field Publications, 2023
As for Life:
A memoir in poetry exploring the isolation & loss of chronic illness
Redhawk Publications, 2022
Marilyn’s full-length volume of poetry offers the assurance that while her illness may be invisible, it is anything but silent. She wanted to give voice to what it feels like to live with chronic illness. Her poetry is intensely personal and authentic.
Anyone living with a chronic illness, family, friends, caregivers and medical professionals, will relate to her words. Anyone living through the COVID-19 pandemic, anyone who has experienced isolation, wearing a mask and avoiding others because of the threat of a virus will be enlightened and touched by her work. Read it and immerse yourself.
Awarded North Carolina Poetry Society’s
2020 LENA SHULL BOOK CONTEST
Honorable Mention
Some Shimmer of You
Finishing Line Press, 2014
Some Shimmer of You, a poetry collection, offers the compelling narrative of a mother’s unjust loss of custody to a vindictive ex-husband because of her sexuality, disability, and financial status. Marilyn pressed her pain into poetry. This book vibrates with a mother’s love for her children, while it powerfully portrays the gripping rendering of longing and loss as fallout of this oppression.
This book is currently out-of-print. However, the poems in this collection have been included in her most recent full-length book, I Still Sing Your Lullabies: A mother’s love & loss.
“McVicker brings her subjects to life…evokes a physicality of motherhood more powerfully than anything I’ve read…although there is heartbreak in every line, there’s redemption, too, as the daughters seem to lift off the page and appear before us in the flesh…McVicker’s voice is hauntingly clear and true, and this is a powerful, generous collection.”
— Abigail DeWitt, author
“In these poems, McVicker talks and sings and sings and talks to the daughters…Read these poems to hear the strong voice of a mother whose brokenness has been transformed into lyric, whose voice is of and in the world of longing and loss.”
— Richard Chess, author, professor, UNC-Asheville
Sauna Detoxification Therapy:
A Guide for the Chemically Sensitive
McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, 1997
The lack of information on toxicity and health consequences, coupled with skepticism, misinformation, misdiagnosis, and a lack of research, has made treatment difficult for people with multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS).
In the early 1980s, doctors began to experiment with a deep and thorough programmed regimen of daily intense sweating as a way to purge the body of harmful chemicals. Sauna detoxification therapy was found surprisingly effective for the treatment of a variety of illnesses.
Information on sauna detoxification is presented here, to assist patients in making informed choices. The causes and symptoms of chemical sensitivities, along with medical and practical information, and experiences of those who have chosen sauna treatment, are provided, along with a discussion of health clubs, detox centers, and home sauna units. Included are detailed instructions for the construction of a home sauna unit made entirely of nontoxic building materials, and a practical list of resources, publications, products and other information.
“Your book is an outstanding tribute…offering important information to the rest of the world.”
— Bernarr Schaeffer, USHECO, Inc.
“McVicker’s book is an excellent resource for coping…this book is informative and helpful…she has written an excellent text that will help many individuals implement an effective approach for improving health. McVicker has presented this important information in a concise and understandable way.”
— Richard Layton, MD.
Poems
Many of Marilyn’s poems have been published elsewhere. We invite you to read and listen to some of her work.
About
Get to know more about Marilyn. Learn more about her background, aspirations, accomplishments and quest to live a life full of meaning.
“Marilyn McVicker’s writing is a combination of poetry and prose that provides a full framework for her story…an amazing and beautiful look into her inner world of love and loss.”