Mother Poems

The book had me fooled. I opened it up and had the notion that what I was dealing with here was just a collection of mom-centric poetry. In my defense, I don't like reading bookflaps and I'd never read a Hope Anita Smith book before. Nope. I hadn't read "The Way a Door Closes" or "Keeping the Night Watch". Also, as a children's librarian I've been trained to think that if a book is called something like "Mother Poems" then it's probably going to be a bunch of unrelated verses about mothers and how swell they are. The kind of thing publishers like to release around the Mother's Day time of the year. As I started reading, I was struck by Smith's voice and sheer clarity of her verse... and then the mother died. Suddenly I had a story on my hands. A tale told in poems about the needs of girls who lose their mamas. Stark and solid, Smith pulls no punches and gives us a strong story infused with the raw pain of loss. "She is my mom." Thirty-one poems and that's the thought that cannot leave this young girl's mind. They have the normal mother/daughter relationship. The hugs and kisses. The annoyance and the whining. But through it all they're remarkably close. So much so that when the girl's mother dies she's cast adrift. Told entirely in the first person, we see the pain of losing someone you love and the snail-like crawl back from the feeling of utter abandonment. In this world there are only two people, a mother and a child, and when you take the mother away what's left is a series of thoughtful, moving, utterly honest poems complemented by collage paper illustrations. The sheer hunger of wanting your mother roars through this book. I've never read a collection of poetry that just leapt into that void so unabashed. At times the book resounds with the girl's desperation. "Good Behavior" catalogs her attempts to do everything right. To be the model child who will be rewarded with the return of her mother once again. Then Smith socks in you the gut with the simplicity of those last two lines. "Tomorrow / I will try harder." "Mother Poems" shifts from merely being a sweet series of poems about a mom, to cataloging the stages of grief in a child. The layers of hurt that have to be mended and healed are revealed here. The father hardly plays any part at all, which is interesting. Maybe there's a story behind who he is, but if that's the case it will have to be told in another book. She may die, but the mother in this story overwhelms everyone else, and the dad is left as merely a plot device and not much more. And while she's doing all that with one hand, the other hand is mixing together delicious turns of phrase. "My Mother's Kitchen" discusses an aunt whose cooking leaves something to be desired. "We all `Mmmmm' together / and raise our eyebrows ever so slightly, / hoping the gesture will act as a lever / to open our throats, / allow Aunt Nedra's / home cooking to pass through." Meanwhile the poem "Sound Advice" t

MOTHER DEAR (Oh mother dear, I miss you like never before) Where are your warm hugs? Have they cracked and wilted in your empty arms Where are your sweet smiles? Have they dried and shriveled on your cold lips Where are your funny jokes? Have they turned to dust and lay at your feet To whom will comfort me? To whom will dry my tears? To whom will I lay my head, When no one else is near? (Oh mother dear, I need you more than ever) Where have you been? Have you finally been laid to rest Where are you now? Are you flying high with the angels? OR Are you down in the deep dark well? Call Me Sonya Grey: A Young Girl's Poems about Death, Life and Adolescence