"A beautiful, personal collection of family photos and poems that express the author's most inner feelings. Nostalgic and heartfelt, Gauffreau's poems are written in the Japanese style of tanka simple, thoughtful, and full of love. Filled with wonderful memories of the past. ~Kristi Elizabeth, Manhattan Book Review
Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance is not a panacea for pain, but a baptism in the waters of love that allows for the author's memories of her beloved father to wash over her andher readers. Immersion in these pieces provides an evocative experience that needs no familiarity with Gauffreau's situation or a family member's death to prove accessible.
"Poetry has no say in the matter" of death, Gauffreau acknowledges from the beginning. What it can do is capture those moments in time which have become the past - moments of realization, remembrance, and transformation that crystalize and hold experiences suspended, much as a once-living figure in amber is represented for all time (or, in this case, as long as this book remains in print.
Color and black and white family photos personalize these experiences, emphasizing the presence of mothers, daughters, and family as they consider the lives and pasts of a mother and father now gone.
As much grief is embedded in these poems, so are family connections, pivot points in the growth of a child that are captured in family portraits and poetic notes, and interpersonal relationships that remain timeless.
What is anticipated to be an expression of sorrows and grief becomes a celebration, honoring those departed who have shaped the author's life in so many ways.
The child's-eye viewpoint is incorporated into many of these works and the hindsight of wisdom and longing of the present day weave poem stories that are succinct and vivid: "silly school project/cardboard box, green poster paint/George's time machine/trips through time at his command/if only he had kept it".
Grief Songs is a collection born from grief which ultimately rests firmly on a lifetime of memories and bittersweet blends of recollection and loss. By "indulging chldhood foibles," these memories bring home, in free verse recollections, the entire family system of support, love, and experience which the author and her readers can grasp as legacies of the past and touchstones for the present.
Poetry readers wlling to walk the road of grief and family connections will find Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance a psychological treasure trove. Its very accessible poetic tribute brings with it something to hold onto - the memories of past family jobs, large and small.
