BOOKS - I WORE THIS DRESS TODAY FOR YOU, MOM

 

I WORE THIS DRESS TODAY FOR YOU, MOM

Beware Kim Dower’s poetry. Again and again, this crafty writer invites you in for a casual chat and then wallops you. Her poem “Game Over” starts with a little comedy about squirting too much mustard on her hotdog; next thing you know, she’s wrestling with the existence of God.  Her fantastic new collection, “I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom,” revolves around quotidian details of domestic life – washing dishes, doing laundry – but existential questions are always lurking beneath the surface. Her most devastating poems are about caring for a mother slipping into dementia. I read the collection last month and had to put it aside. Coming back to it this week, I’m wrung out all over again.
-- Washington Post

Featuring gorgeous gems from Dower's four poetry collections and new pieces energized by the sheer power of her wit and irreverent style, I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom will make readers both groan at and delight in recognition of the everyday absurdities and magical moments that add up to a lifetime of irreplaceable memories.
-- Shelf Awareness


Kim Dower’s poetry has been described by the Los Angeles Times as “sensual and evocative . . . seamlessly combining humor and heartache,” and by O Magazine as “unexpected and sublime.” Acclaimed for combining the accessible and profound, her poems about motherhood are some of her most moving and disarmingly candid. I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom is an anthology of her poems on being a mother—childbirth to empty nest—as well as being a daughter with all the teenaged messiness, drama and conflict, to finally caring for one’s mother suffering from dementia. Culled from her four collections as well as a selection of new work, these poems, heartbreaking, funny, surprising, and touching, explore the quirky, unexpected observations, and bittersweet moments mothers and daughters share. These evocative poems do not glorify mothers, but rather look under the hood of motherhood and explore the deep crevices and emotions of these impenetrable relationships: the love, despair, joy, humor and gratitude that fills our lives.

A rich, complex, heartbreaking, and funny anthology of poems on motherhood—being one and having one.


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