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Words for My Mother
by Monica K. Allen
21 Poems ~ 39 pages
Price: $15.00
Publisher: Monica K. Allen
ISBN #: 979-8-9921627-0-7
To Order: monicakayallen@gmail.com.
Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
Monica Allen dedicates her debut poetry collection to her late mother Kathleen Lou Sloan. Allen says, she “taught me so much, but not everything.” This amazingly candid description displays an important trait for poets: The ability to step back from her subject and be real about its truth.
Of the more than two hundred poetry books I have read and reviewed, this chapbook stands out to me for its vivid portrayal of love through suffering. Allen writes without pretense, no big show-off words that few can understand. Words for My Mother depicts “love-in-action.”
Background
This collection grows out of Kathleen’s diagnosis of Dermatillomania, a mental health con-dition where the patient compulsively picks at her skin. Complicating this was the Covid-19 Pandemic with its plethora of dark days, death, and unparalleled disruptions of life. Allen’s poems chronicle their mutual love beginning with Kathleen’s illness and moving through health-stages to the end.
Love that Knows No Barriers
Allen leads with a word of thanks to caregivers: “Haiku for My Disabled Mother”:
The highest of highs
Bipolar one disorder
The lowest of lows
Unsaid feelings, masked,
until the illness took hold
of body and mind
Too many years passed
before the diagnosis
was properly made
Mom’s care: medicines,
hospital stays, ETC,
therapy hours
“Thanks!” to caregivers,
family, and friends, who helped-
you kept her alive
Two features stand out to me: One: “Unsaid feelings masked,” and two: “Until the illness took hold of body and mind.” I sense, reading between the lines, a realization, long delayed, that it is now time to be “real” and come to grips with truth and love. The stage is now set; everything is in place for a daughter’s words for her mother.
There is a slow but steady progression in the poems that follow. “Untitled 1999,” uses flowers metaphorically to describe Kathleen’s emergence from “Sheltered, rare, and undiscovered / Nasty weeds covered her for years / she nearly withered away … Roots expand in the new garden / Soon she will be a most beautiful flower.” Another poem, “My mom, the treasure keeper,” portrays a mother who, despite her personal suffering, had time to create fun experiences for her daughter. A pocket in her mother’s bathrobe often became the focus of celebration, in little-girl treasures such as paper clips found, or candy or small toys.
I offer “Ode to My Mother’s Dermatillomania” as a kind of summary of care Kathleen’s condition demanded and Monica’s sensitive love:
The daughter
The trusted one
This role
Never sought
Her, always honest
Showing holes
Me, researching reasons
Providing wound care
More time together
Visiting doctors
Unconscious craters
Brought us closer
Cellulitis cases
Multiple medicines
MRSA cells
Powered guest room
Other difficulties accumulated
Support required
Difficult move
Mutually planned
Assisted living apartment
Daily skin checks
DuoDERM patches
Provided protection
Loving each other
12 miles apart
As Kathleen’s symptoms worsen, Monica’s love and attention increases. Covid-19 is a third major player in this poignant human drama. I admit to tears as Monica’s poems detail those little things that occupy her presence as her mother’s decline defines itself.
“The Last Tissue,” says a lot, “Tonight, there is one, one last tissue. I don’t want / to use it. For how long can I let the box / collect dust on the bookshelf?”
For all of us who have grieved with a loved one during their “long goodbye,” Words for My Mother, by Monica Allen is a must read. Whatever had gone before matters little as the end draws near. Please reflect upon “Always Connected”:
Our time here
overlapped for
41 years
Together
We
loved
taught
helped
listened to
each other
Like no one else could
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