Journeywoman is the story in poems of the explicitly female journey made by women through girlhood, motherhood and beyond. The play on the word journeyman is intentional with the notion of completing an apprenticeship and seeking mastery of the trade implicit. The actual journey, both physical and intellectual, however, is what brings woman to that state of mastery and Journeywoman, through verse, provides just one itinerary. This unique collection explores the stages of womanhood as defined by this author: the waif, the mother and the crone. It invokes the stories of many to describe the process of mastering the craft of being female, with all its inherent complexities. The actual journey is both physical and intellectual and involves not only the physical alterations a woman undergoes through the changing of stages—the metamorphosing required to achieve mastery—but also true travel, the road embarked upon to achieve enlightenment, the attempt to grasp the intangible, the ethereal, the metaphysical, the disembodied, the sacred.

Carolyne Van Der Meer is a journalist, public relations professional and university lecturer who has published articles, essays, short stories and poems internationally. Her first book, Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience, was published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in 2014, and her second book, a collection of poetry entitled Journeywoman, was published in 2017. A third book, for which she translated her own poems into French, Heart of Goodness: The Life of Marguerite Bourgeoys in 30 Poems | Du coeur à l'âme : La vie de Marguerite Bourgeoys en 30 poèmes, was published by Guernica in 2021. Sensorial is her third full-length poetry collection. Carolyne lives in Montreal, Quebec.

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