Healing Art: Rebecca Smolen's "Womanhood and Other Scars"

I'm thrilled to announce the publication of a new volume of poetry by my beloved friend (and former student!) Rebecca Smolen.

You can read my review below to find out why I'm a fan of Rebecca's writing.To order your copy, click http://thepoetrybox.com/bookstore/womanhood-other-scars. 

Illustration by Fiona Ferguson

Womanhood and Other Scars by Rebecca Smolen is more than a book. It’s an invitation, not just to peer into the inner life of its author, but to walk around, sniff the marrow inside her bones and explore the bruises buried deep inside.

When I met this gifted poet four years ago, I was struck by the depth and honesty of her work and the richness and mystery of her imagery. Her new collection is no exception. These 28 poems take an unflinching look at life, using metaphors that pulse with the heat of a variety of emotions, from the intensity of maternal love to the aching need to break free from isolation and anxiety.

While the pain in this collection is palpable, there’s also joy, seen especially in the pleasure Smolen takes in her work. In “Such Hobbies Must Have a Warning,” she literally describes writing as a handicraft, suggesting she can “quilt myself back together” or that “one neglected strand could be crocheted into something warm.” The despair in this piece is real, even chilling – she says she can either “Slice apart my blue-veined threads or toss the blade, end the threats” – but she also rejoices in the fact that her artistry creates “something beautiful.”

Many of the poems also celebrate the happiness of connecting with others. In “Dusting,” Smolen muses on the particles of dried skin cells that coat her and “considers of what creatures, wounds, this dust was stripped.” She also comes to the conclusion that in a world where our cells all intermingle, “I can no longer be considered a singular woman nor ever deserted again.” Similarly, in “Where Has Peace Gone?” she says she will “gulp heartily without breath” the laugh of a loving friend. That, she says, is where peace is.

The wounds described in Womanhood and Other Scars often stem from a sense of disconnection, especially between parents and children. The mother in “Never Far From Dwelled Upon Fairytales” is determined to help her daughter achieve outward beauty, but ends up damaging the child who’s now haunted by repeated criticisms of her appearance. In the same poem, the child’s innocence drowns in the “disappointed sigh” of her dad.

If the mother figures in these poems can be unpleasant (in one, thin wrists “present” a mother’s “harsh lines of her fingers like a crown”), Smolen knows that parenting requires a sometimes painful zeal. Worried about a 7-year-old son who doesn’t want to play, she says, “I can feel the ache and ice in his eyes, how they beg for the something he needs.” In “An Ode to Motherhood,” she also expresses the weight of that parental responsibility, contemplating “being this universe to the bundled children upstairs.” Digging even deeper, the poem “A Birth of a Daughter” acknowledges that no parent can make life perfect for a child and that the path of this girl will be “laced with scraped knees and raspberry bushes.” The mother in this piece vows to let her new daughter “softly sip the fragile sweetness amidst thorns.”

In Smolen’s world, the isolation of people living in their separate shells can be intolerable, but through her art, she bravely seeks to make connections by exposing her rawest emotions in her finely crafted poems. Always a generous writer, Smolen knows that her interior journey is both unique and universal and that sharing it has healing powers for both herself and us.