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Lovely Daughter of the Shattering, Kelsay Books, 2019
Mom Egg Review
It never ceases to amaze me, the capacity of poets to lay bear with unflinching honesty what is deep within us all. This is a powerful collection, which reads like a narrative poem, and whose lingering impact is captured in its title, both lovely and shattering.
The imagery, and the struggle of inescapable love and commitment is almost biblical in its scope, which wouldn't be out of place if I read it in the laments of the great prophets of the Hebrew bible. I read the entire collection twice through in one setting, it is accessible and beautiful writing whose imagery sometimes made me wince, but which also invited me to stare hard at the scale of a mother's love and the depths to which some of us can sink.
I loved the rhythm of the book as well. When I turned the page to "On the Morning of My Grandson's Baptism" I wanted to cry out with relief and joy. And then the next poem, finishing with "Hush, hush my love. All these things happened." was just beautiful.
But that is not the end, and I imagine it took some courage to refuse to finish there. The struggle of love admits not easy solution and so the wrestle goes on.
A terrific first collection, I look forward to the next.
--Glenn Jordan, www.crookedshore.com
life, theology and spirituality on the county down shoreline
The poems of Lovely Daughter of the Shattering somersault the reader into a chronicle of a mother’s valiant efforts to be the “stand-in love” for her daughter. Patrice Boyer Claeys’ mesmerizing first collection feels at times confessional, revelatory, and tragic as the narrator divulges just how elastic a mother’s arms can be. The aching voices of both parent and child will resonate with any reader who has lived or witnessed the dance of embrace, resist and survive. Ultimately, it is a book of compassion, a mother’s tale of “a body given to shield you from the night.”
—Gail Goepfert, Associate Editor, RHINO Poetry, author of A Mind on Pain, Tapping Roots and Get Up Said the World
In Claeys’ powerful debut collection, Lovely Daughter of the Shattering, the poems illuminate complexities of parenting a child with mental disorders. The book encompasses a range of experience, from adopting, to weathering a tumultuous adolescence, to nurturing an adult child. The poems are remarkable for the empathy they display both for the pained speaker/parent and for the angry and hurting child. Loving such a daughter can require the destruction of assumptions to clear space for real connection. The frequent use of the cento form, which re-purposes lines from others’ poems, underlines the universality of these problems. This book is an eloquent, honest, and inspiring account of the power of persistence of love.
—Marjorie Tesser, Editor-in-Chief, Mom Egg Review, author of The Important Thing Is and The Magic Feather
The image-drenched poems in Patrice Boyer Claeys’ compelling collection shatter the myth of easy mother-daughter love, leaving behind a truth most parents are unwilling to hold. The daughter’s eyes follow us through these poems. The baby “eyes all mine” become the toddler’s “golden irises.” All too soon they change to the “black-rimmed, streaming eyes” of a teenager. The daughter, now a single mother, turns her gaze to her infant son and asks, “Do you love me?” The poet’s own unflinching eyes refuse to look away. This brave book shows that although motherly love cannot heal all, it can hold fast.
—Barbara Kreader Skalinder, author of The Music of Teaching
Brave, shocking, and heart-rending, Patrice Claeys' Lovely Daughter of the Shattering conjures a mother/daughter relationship with non-stop skill and nerve. Lyrical yet packed with details which illuminate a family perpetually in crisis, these poems come to us wearing many forms, including 11 remarkable centos. It is lovely and moving—certainly never boring—to read this book.
—Alice George, author of This Must Be The Place
Mom Egg Review
It never ceases to amaze me, the capacity of poets to lay bear with unflinching honesty what is deep within us all. This is a powerful collection, which reads like a narrative poem, and whose lingering impact is captured in its title, both lovely and shattering.
The imagery, and the struggle of inescapable love and commitment is almost biblical in its scope, which wouldn't be out of place if I read it in the laments of the great prophets of the Hebrew bible. I read the entire collection twice through in one setting, it is accessible and beautiful writing whose imagery sometimes made me wince, but which also invited me to stare hard at the scale of a mother's love and the depths to which some of us can sink.
I loved the rhythm of the book as well. When I turned the page to "On the Morning of My Grandson's Baptism" I wanted to cry out with relief and joy. And then the next poem, finishing with "Hush, hush my love. All these things happened." was just beautiful.
But that is not the end, and I imagine it took some courage to refuse to finish there. The struggle of love admits not easy solution and so the wrestle goes on.
A terrific first collection, I look forward to the next.
--Glenn Jordan, www.crookedshore.com
life, theology and spirituality on the county down shoreline
The poems of Lovely Daughter of the Shattering somersault the reader into a chronicle of a mother’s valiant efforts to be the “stand-in love” for her daughter. Patrice Boyer Claeys’ mesmerizing first collection feels at times confessional, revelatory, and tragic as the narrator divulges just how elastic a mother’s arms can be. The aching voices of both parent and child will resonate with any reader who has lived or witnessed the dance of embrace, resist and survive. Ultimately, it is a book of compassion, a mother’s tale of “a body given to shield you from the night.”
—Gail Goepfert, Associate Editor, RHINO Poetry, author of A Mind on Pain, Tapping Roots and Get Up Said the World
In Claeys’ powerful debut collection, Lovely Daughter of the Shattering, the poems illuminate complexities of parenting a child with mental disorders. The book encompasses a range of experience, from adopting, to weathering a tumultuous adolescence, to nurturing an adult child. The poems are remarkable for the empathy they display both for the pained speaker/parent and for the angry and hurting child. Loving such a daughter can require the destruction of assumptions to clear space for real connection. The frequent use of the cento form, which re-purposes lines from others’ poems, underlines the universality of these problems. This book is an eloquent, honest, and inspiring account of the power of persistence of love.
—Marjorie Tesser, Editor-in-Chief, Mom Egg Review, author of The Important Thing Is and The Magic Feather
The image-drenched poems in Patrice Boyer Claeys’ compelling collection shatter the myth of easy mother-daughter love, leaving behind a truth most parents are unwilling to hold. The daughter’s eyes follow us through these poems. The baby “eyes all mine” become the toddler’s “golden irises.” All too soon they change to the “black-rimmed, streaming eyes” of a teenager. The daughter, now a single mother, turns her gaze to her infant son and asks, “Do you love me?” The poet’s own unflinching eyes refuse to look away. This brave book shows that although motherly love cannot heal all, it can hold fast.
—Barbara Kreader Skalinder, author of The Music of Teaching
Brave, shocking, and heart-rending, Patrice Claeys' Lovely Daughter of the Shattering conjures a mother/daughter relationship with non-stop skill and nerve. Lyrical yet packed with details which illuminate a family perpetually in crisis, these poems come to us wearing many forms, including 11 remarkable centos. It is lovely and moving—certainly never boring—to read this book.
—Alice George, author of This Must Be The Place