A gripping poetic meditation on aging and caregiving.
A volume of poetry looks at what it means to watch a parent fade.
In this unflinching, highly compelling collection, Spang (Those Close Beside Me, 2018, etc.) mines his own life for reflections on his childhood and mother. As Anna, his mother, crosses into her 10th decade, the author and his partner, Myles, move her into their home where they care for her, watching as her body and mind begin to fail. In an early poem, Spang describes her as “handy as a wrench,” mimicking the limited view children often have of their parents. But the collection winds from the author’s childhood to adulthood and becomes increasingly revealing along the way. The book is often worth reading for the nuggets of Anna’s life, like the fact that she danced with Martha Graham and that she, as Spang reports with gentle humor, insisted her less than faithful husband was “wonderful.” The author is able to infuse the volume with joy and compassion while shining a light on the more unflattering episodes that come with caring for an elderly parent. Recalling a particularly difficult moment helping his mother to the bathroom, he writes: “I hear a scream—who is it? / It’s me or what seems to be me / (there is no other way to say it) / screaming like I’ve gone out of my mind. / I slam my fist into the closet door, / and cry out, ‘I can’t take it!’ ” The vivid scene ends with mother comforting son, underscoring the ways in which physical dependency is not the only mode at play in their new dynamic. Dividing the intimate yet universal poems are quotes from writers like Czesław Miłosz, Robert Frost, and Walt Whitman, accompanied by simple images of nature by debut photographer Rightmire. Gardening—a hobby Spang and his mother seem to share—is a long-running theme in these pages. An especially arresting closing poem uses the language of gardens both earthly and biblical to make sense of Anna’s eventual death.
A gripping poetic meditation on aging and caregiving.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73236-246-8
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Moon Pie Press
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sprawling collection, light on concrete specifics, that intriguingly lays out a dance of seduction in all of its...
K.’s (Stoner’s Bone of Contention, 2013, etc.) collection of erotic poetry offers a cavalcade of love affairs, focusing on the narrator’s moment-to-moment fantasies and experiences.
Instead of detailing the peaks and valleys of one particular relationship, K. uses graphic language to focus readers’ attention on the body parts, sexual satisfaction, and the dominance and submission of a series of different lovers. In these verses, the present seduction is all that exists; nostalgia is largely nonexistent, and anticipation matters only in relationship to the conquest that is about to take place—if the narrator’s lover follows her explicit instructions: “We will neck and pet / swooning and ardent / whispering appreciation. / Desire will drive us / to the brink / and self-satisfaction / will slide us over it.” Notions of love are left out and, with them, the darker sides of love, such as regret and rejection. The poet’s chief concerns are pleasures happening now or in the immediate future, reflected in the ubiquitous present tense, which cumulatively gives readers the sense that thousands of fantasies are unfolding simultaneously. The poems mention no names, nor do they give a clear sense of recurring partners, lending them an anonymous, impersonal quality. They also liberally use the second-person point of view, again indicating an indiscernible number of lovers. It’s hard not to be impressed by how much time and fervent energy the narrator devotes to these romps; in one poem, she describes herself as a vessel for passion rather than its source: “I’m not a giver or a taker. / I’m a transducer, a conducive element / ... / Sensual powers pass to me / and through me / ...not from me / Empty like a mirror when no one’s there.” Not coincidentally, artists often provide similar explanations when discussing their inspiration.
A sprawling collection, light on concrete specifics, that intriguingly lays out a dance of seduction in all of its conceivable steps.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482683462
Page Count: 150
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful book of sad, funny and relatable verse and a comforting companion for anyone grieving the loss of a loved one.
A hard-won, heart-wrenching collection of poems.
In her latest book, poet Josefowitz (Been There, Done That, Doing It Better, 2009) touchingly chronicles the painful first year after the death of her longtime husband. Beginning with a description of his final days in hospice, her plainspoken, free verse documents the slow burn of her grief from day to day—whether she’s at her husband’s funeral struggling to “find the man I loved / in all these words” or sitting alone in the evenings, trying to conjure the presence of her lost love (“make a sound in the wind / touch my cheek / with a breath of air”). Although the poems sometimes rely on clichéd abstractions and can err toward the sentimental, Josefowitz’s sense of detail makes them sing. The poems are at their best when most specific: “I miss him / rustling the newspapers / in the room next door / his voice on the phone— / I always knew which of the children / he was talking to.” The author never shies away from difficulties she faces—a fractured sense of self, months of inconsolability and profound survivor’s guilt when she eventually finds herself able to enjoy things again. In the sad but charming “Firsts,” she finds she must learn how to do the many mundane tasks her husband used to do: taking out the garbage, resetting the clocks for daylight saving time, opening a bottle of wine. Josefowitz’s poems, in all their raw tenderness, are sometimes excruciating to read, but they’re ultimately testaments to a great love and affirmations of the author’s new identity as a single, self-sustaining woman in her elder years.
A beautiful book of sad, funny and relatable verse and a comforting companion for anyone grieving the loss of a loved one.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1484141328
Page Count: 108
Publisher: Prestwik Poetry Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
