THE MACHINERY OF GRACE BY CAROL SADTLER ON RHINO REVIEWS
rhinopoetry.org/reviews/the-machinery-of-grace-edited-by-patrice-boyer-claeys-reviewed-by-carol-sadtler
So many mothers in one—the mother who raised you, the woman she was before you came along, the one who stays with you after she’s gone. In The Machinery of Grace, Patrice Boyer Claeys masterfully winnows and combines borrowed lines from a wide range of poets to create centos that illuminate the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship.
Work begun as she mourned her mother’s death, Claeys’ poems recall her at various stages of life, from “When she turned 19, her beautiful body ran full out,” to her demise, as she “feels the cold—/ lips, toes and fingers like pale blue orchids, / her eyes half closed and flat gray.” As a mother herself, the poet can “reconstruct her—her sorrow and pleasure equally manifest / a part of her always / rolling cookie dough into balls / wanting to be sure / she would teach us to be a mother.”
Claeys’ ability to inhabit both ends of a mother-daughter connection in the space of one poem sets the reader squarely into the intimacy of the relationship. In her first book, Lovely Daughter of the Shattering, about an adoptive mother whose daughter struggles with mental disorders, “The child stirs, / gazes through / the sheen of sleep, / reaches toward / the wet face / of the / stand-in love, / to close the space between.”
The structure of The Machinery of Grace is organic in its process of loss, grief, memory and acceptance. Transcendence runs throughout. As the mother lets go, her daughter urges her to “Keep going forward / into the pocket of air, / like morning through split curtains / and gold hidden in satin.”
With the precision of a jeweler, Claeys sets gems into precious metal to create a new piece. After articulating the pain that comes with loss and the mixed feelings of remembering, the poems move into a joy that comes as the mourner returns to herself to celebrate earthly pleasures. There is delight in “A day like eggshell,” or “Two people talking / full of simple, joyful melody,” or, simply, “the click, the whir, the eddying forward.”
Carol Sadtler is a freelance writer and editor in Chicago. Her poems have appeared in Pacific Review, RHINO, The Tishman Review, Hartskill Review, The Maine Review and other publications. She has served as an associate editor for RHINO poetry and is an active member of a local poetry group, Plumb Line Poets.
EXCERPT FROM REVIEW OF LOVELY DAUGHTER OF THE SHATTERING BY CAROLE MERTZ
“Child” (16), nevertheless, sears through a violent scene and shows us that, by decision, the mother will prevail.
So, my precious child, rail on.
I will survive the choking doubt that sends me down
this slope of pain, that rounds my shoulders
as I lightly pat for broken glass.
I will hold fast.
Read more:
momeggreview.com/2019/04/25/lovely-daughter-of-the-shattering-by-patrice-boyer-claeys/
EXCERPT FROM REVIEW OF LOVELY DAUGHTER OF THE SHATTERING BY SURY GOSCH
Claeys takes us on a mesmerizing journey of parenting a child with mental illness, describing the first love of a mother and her child at the adopting agency — “We’re in this thing like leaves, like sandwich halves. Neither of us live without the other” — through the time when the mother now witnesses her daughter becoming a teenage parent. The mother affectionately observes her teenage daughter as the latter tends to her son: “She dresses him with care, cuing the blue of his sleeper to the flecks on her acrylic nails — as if they’re off to a photo shoot instead of the sofa.”
Read more: trampset.org/book-review-lovely-daughter-of-the-shattering-eea8775437d7
EXCERPT FROM REVIEW OF LOVELY DAUGHTER OF THE SHATTERING BY SHERRY SMITH
And then there are the eleven lovely centos, lines adopted from other poets, yet resonant with the voice of this poet. Perhaps they are a metaphor for this blended family forged by choice, not birth, and being fraught with seeking balance in honoring the original poetry and finding one's own way. Adrienne Rich said, "Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know."
Read more: rhinopoetry.org/reviews/lovely-daughter-of-the-shattering-by-patrice-boyer-claeys-reviewed-by-sherry-smith
rhinopoetry.org/reviews/the-machinery-of-grace-edited-by-patrice-boyer-claeys-reviewed-by-carol-sadtler
So many mothers in one—the mother who raised you, the woman she was before you came along, the one who stays with you after she’s gone. In The Machinery of Grace, Patrice Boyer Claeys masterfully winnows and combines borrowed lines from a wide range of poets to create centos that illuminate the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship.
Work begun as she mourned her mother’s death, Claeys’ poems recall her at various stages of life, from “When she turned 19, her beautiful body ran full out,” to her demise, as she “feels the cold—/ lips, toes and fingers like pale blue orchids, / her eyes half closed and flat gray.” As a mother herself, the poet can “reconstruct her—her sorrow and pleasure equally manifest / a part of her always / rolling cookie dough into balls / wanting to be sure / she would teach us to be a mother.”
Claeys’ ability to inhabit both ends of a mother-daughter connection in the space of one poem sets the reader squarely into the intimacy of the relationship. In her first book, Lovely Daughter of the Shattering, about an adoptive mother whose daughter struggles with mental disorders, “The child stirs, / gazes through / the sheen of sleep, / reaches toward / the wet face / of the / stand-in love, / to close the space between.”
The structure of The Machinery of Grace is organic in its process of loss, grief, memory and acceptance. Transcendence runs throughout. As the mother lets go, her daughter urges her to “Keep going forward / into the pocket of air, / like morning through split curtains / and gold hidden in satin.”
With the precision of a jeweler, Claeys sets gems into precious metal to create a new piece. After articulating the pain that comes with loss and the mixed feelings of remembering, the poems move into a joy that comes as the mourner returns to herself to celebrate earthly pleasures. There is delight in “A day like eggshell,” or “Two people talking / full of simple, joyful melody,” or, simply, “the click, the whir, the eddying forward.”
Carol Sadtler is a freelance writer and editor in Chicago. Her poems have appeared in Pacific Review, RHINO, The Tishman Review, Hartskill Review, The Maine Review and other publications. She has served as an associate editor for RHINO poetry and is an active member of a local poetry group, Plumb Line Poets.
EXCERPT FROM REVIEW OF LOVELY DAUGHTER OF THE SHATTERING BY CAROLE MERTZ
“Child” (16), nevertheless, sears through a violent scene and shows us that, by decision, the mother will prevail.
So, my precious child, rail on.
I will survive the choking doubt that sends me down
this slope of pain, that rounds my shoulders
as I lightly pat for broken glass.
I will hold fast.
Read more:
momeggreview.com/2019/04/25/lovely-daughter-of-the-shattering-by-patrice-boyer-claeys/
EXCERPT FROM REVIEW OF LOVELY DAUGHTER OF THE SHATTERING BY SURY GOSCH
Claeys takes us on a mesmerizing journey of parenting a child with mental illness, describing the first love of a mother and her child at the adopting agency — “We’re in this thing like leaves, like sandwich halves. Neither of us live without the other” — through the time when the mother now witnesses her daughter becoming a teenage parent. The mother affectionately observes her teenage daughter as the latter tends to her son: “She dresses him with care, cuing the blue of his sleeper to the flecks on her acrylic nails — as if they’re off to a photo shoot instead of the sofa.”
Read more: trampset.org/book-review-lovely-daughter-of-the-shattering-eea8775437d7
EXCERPT FROM REVIEW OF LOVELY DAUGHTER OF THE SHATTERING BY SHERRY SMITH
And then there are the eleven lovely centos, lines adopted from other poets, yet resonant with the voice of this poet. Perhaps they are a metaphor for this blended family forged by choice, not birth, and being fraught with seeking balance in honoring the original poetry and finding one's own way. Adrienne Rich said, "Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know."
Read more: rhinopoetry.org/reviews/lovely-daughter-of-the-shattering-by-patrice-boyer-claeys-reviewed-by-sherry-smith
