First published 2010
A mother watches her children grow and change while she faces her own mortality in the rugged terrain of New Zealand's Awhitu Peninsula. The poems move between intimate family moments and encounters with a landscape that can comfort or threaten without warning. She documents how illness transforms her awareness of her own body and spirit. Her relationships shift as her children mature and distance themselves, while she grapples with what it means to nurture and let go. The collection traces her journey through physical vulnerability and the fierce love that binds families together even as they drift apart. At its heart, this is a meditation on how we connect with the natural world and each other when facing life's most challenging passages.
Genres: literary-fiction, poetry, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, family-dynamics
Setting: Awhitu Peninsula, New Zealand
Period: 21st-century
73 pages · Paperback · Carcanet Press Ltd.