New Women's Voices

Of a Mother enters the strange time-space continuum of grief that is terminal illness, exploring a mother's death from cancer and a daughter's ways of coping. In this linear set of poems, everyday objects like pincushions, dressing gowns, and perfumes become relics; sponge baths, cool drinks, and hand lotion become sacred offerings; the living mother and the cremation urn are superimposed, leaving the bereaved at a crossroads: how to live without a parent.