Mother Love Book

Just pulled this collection off my shelves and dove into it, and by the third poem or so wondered what took me so long to find it and actually read it.

The poems in this volume are tough but delicate. Dove's use of imagery and voice are stunning; I'm drawn into the ways in which Dove weaves her personal experience (or invented narrative experience that is vivid enough to seem personal) into the Persephone-Demeter mythology. I'm particularly keen on the ways in which Dove alludes to versions of the self in time -- the young self in Paris, for instance, vs. the older self in the US -- linking Demeter/mother to Persephone/daughter in rich and compelling ways.

Dove's ability to capture the darkness *and* the ecstasy of mother love is what binds all of these poems together. Whether you're a bio-parent or a parent-by-proxy, you understand the dangerous essence of that parental love, and how it opens us to potentially fatal grief. Dove reminds me of that, and though her poems hold that darkness fully, they also offer me the hope/love that redeems it.