Car Poems by Maureen McElroy

In Maureen McElroy’s chapbook Car Poems, the title poem signifies her playful, witty angle of vision, invoking such comparisons as “Cup holders and couplets” and “Stop signs and stanza breaks.” She has an imagination that comes alive in lines like this: “and I dreamt I was cheating/on my husband with my husband.” McElroy has a unique take on the quotidian experience of relationship pain: “1 just sit around naked/growing body hair.” That offbeat deflection is part of an emotional and aesthetic strategy that moves these poems into the music of language and resilience.

–Teresa Cader, author of History of Hurricanes, The Paper Wasp, and Guests

McElroy’s journey in “Car Poems” is a courageous and hard-fought struggle to emerge whole at the end of a troubled relationship. In a voice witty and humorous, she warns “Some people have sex in cars/ . . . but I write poems . . .1 may be pulled over/for driving while writing poems.” The opposing pulls of sensuous longing and anger are teased out as each poem moves deeper into what was the marriage, and the reimagining of self that follows. With a keen eye for memory’s apt details, McElroy offers tender glimpses of childhood and parents. She works to celebrate her womanhood, finding in Ruth Bader Ginsburg an inspiring model. The distance traveled here is considerable, and love’s echoes reverberate throughout.

–Holly Guran, Author of River of Bones and Twilight Chorus