On Her Own Terms
Poems about Memory Loss and Living Life to the Fullest
Description
Internationally acclaimed author Carolyn Gammon conjures a kind and unflinching portrait of her mother’s memory loss—ultimately revealing the love, joy and life which remain even as memory fades. Each poem reveals the intimacy of this mother-daughter relationship, thrusting the reader into their dialogue and communication. Kind, often funny, and always honest, this collection is for anyone who has loved someone who is beginning to forget; has forgotten; but will not be forgotten.
Reviews
"With her mother’s declining health and rewiring circuitry of memories, Gammon draws us in. Her poignant narrative poems evoke their lives together over the decades in nonlinear fashion accompanied by her mother’s pithy, unpredictable one-liners at the bottom of each page. This is poetic narrative undone, rediscovered, and re-imagined. ”
- Betsy Warland, author of <i>Bloodroot: Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss</i>
“Carolyn Gammon’s sensitive poetry tells the story of her mother’s life, with the emphasis on her last years with failing memory. Frances Firth Gammon was a remarkable woman, and the relationship between her and her daughter shows that personality remains when memory fails and deserves to be recognized.”
- Eleanor Belyea Wees, ninety-eight years old, long-time friend of Frances Firth Gammon, and co-founder of <i>The Fiddlehead</i>