Tamara Madison writes poem about the rawness of life.

I don’t think I was quite ready for Morpheus Dips His Oar: Poems, the 2023 collection by Tamara Madison. The word that comes to mind is raw, something beyond candid. These are the words of understanding of what has shaped a life.

Most of that shaping is by people – parents, siblings, family friends who might be a bit too friendly. There’s the mother who is mystified by her own grandchildren and any other children not her own, but she can quickly sketch them, “stilled like insects on flypaper.” The postmaster, her mother’s friend, is a little too friendly with his hands. Her friend’s father, a professor who seems so sweet, drives his daughter to attempted suicide.

She describes the realities of assisted living, including the singalong that includes the songs she herself has known since she heard her parents singing the same tunes. She talks with a 93-year-old resident in a poem entitled “Waiting for the Scythe.” She explains death as becoming a voyager, “like the last leaf gone… you abandoned your body like a dress / tossed aside after a night of dancing.”

She applies that same precise eye to herself. She recalls the Christmas she and her husband did not spend together, with him preferring the company of someone else. She and a friend discover Paris and France at 19, learning that it’s not all romance. She wants her husband “to look at my face / twenty years from now and see / something beautiful he remembers.” She considers the stories of her own dreams.

It’s not a merciless or even cold account of anything she describes. It is clear-eyed. Nothing is romanticized.

This is how Madison introduces her father.

The Nicest Man

Near the end, all his fierceness
is gone. Stroke-softened, trembling
from Parkinson’s, mind veiled
by dementia, this boulder of a man
whose temper terrorized employees
and family alike, spends his days
hunched before the TV watching
M*A*S*H reruns and the Iran-Contra
hearings (I’ve always been a Republican,
but now I’m not so sure, he tells me).
One morning I find the TV tuned to PBS.
Dad! You’re watching Mr. Rogers!
The frightening vehemence back
in his face, he turns to me and growls,
THAT is the NICEST man!

Madison previously published two poetry collections, Wild Domestic and Moraine, and a poetry chapbook, The Belly Remembers. Forthcoming is a new full collection, Russian Honeymoon. Her poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, and published in several literary magazines, including Chiron Review, Your Daily Poem, A Year of Being Here, Nerve Cowboy, and One Art. She recently retired from teaching English and French in a Los Angeles high school.

No, I wasn’t ready for the rawness of Morpheus Dips His Oar. But it’s a powerful collection, with riveting poems that keep your eyes glued to the page. It might also rquire a respite to catach your breath.

Photo by Maja Dumat, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.

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