Mater

By Liz Reilly

Grief has no set limits. It is not a checklist, and it does not come with a set of guidelines. It is messy and personal, unfit for our modern world. It is not polite, it is not sociable, it is not easily communicated. But it is essential. My mother died in 2005 after a long and complicated series of illnesses. It's only now, at the distance of years, that I can consider what we meant to each other, and explore the landscape of her absence. "Mater" helped me chart this landscape. It is one poem, divided into sections, dealing mostly with her death and my feelings immediately after. I routinely discover new dimensions of this loss - they work their way forward in my mind like shards of glass, and emerge when I'm least prepared. Likewise, poems only make sense when you're not trying to make them do so. Like grief, they will echo throughout your hole life, and you will shape your existence around them. You learn to live right alongside those ghosts, and to treasure them. "Mater" is my way of doing that - maybe it can help you too.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1505682134
• ISBN13: 9781505682137
• Release Date: December 2014
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 26 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.1" x 6.0"