Mother. Grave. Ghost. by Dana Malone and Lauren Suzanne

This chapbook renders the loss of mothers through haunting sweeps of images rooted in childhood and hospital rooms, churches and birds. The poets’ voices, augmented by those of two siblings, are amplified by the poems’ musical invocations—ode, hymn, recitative. As this chorus intones “the gap in space where you should be,” a refrain that echoes through each poem, Malone and Suzanne deliver a collection that blends aria and elegy.

–Annette Sisson, author of A Casting Off (2019, Finishing Line Press) and Small Fish in High Branches (2022, Glass Lyre Press)

The etymological root of the word “ghost” is the Old English gast, which in part means “breath.” And while we might now think of ghosts as the absence of breath, the mothers in these poems very much pulse and breathe through and in between the language and specific moments Dana Malone and Lauren Suzanne exquisitely offer us. Sometimes the poems sing Gospel tunes. They hush at times, and sometimes they speak in the language of childhood query and adult unknowing. They rest between earth and the veil, between night and sunrise, between tears and not being able to cry, between shoulder blades. Which is to say, this work–like breath–pulls and releases and leaves the reader in the tension of reaching toward the moon of our longing and digging into the wet soil of our own griefs and loss. Malone and Suzanne invite us into intimate last moments and lasting memories, leaving us more aware of our breath and being. You will unfold with these poems as they allow the often unspeakable to find its way to language, and you will return to their compelling explorations of grief again the way you might return to visit a grave. These poems are a necessary reverence, a pouring out of language libations, a kneeling at the tombstone of lament in awe of every memory that keeps the breath of those who have left us somehow nearer.

–Ciona Rouse, author of Vantablack

Mother, Grave, Ghost is a beautiful and emotional collection of poems by Dana Malone and Lauren Suzanne.  I have been moved more than once by these poems because they are from a daughter’s point of view about losing her mother. There are the precious childhood memories, the pain of the loss and life afterward. My mother has been gone a year-and-a-half now and I really connected with these poems. I miss my mother so much–every single day–and losing her has been the hardest part of my life.  It never gets easier for any of us who have experienced this loss. But love never dies. Our mothers are still with us. Mother. Grave. Ghost. is a reminder of that. Thank you, Dana and Lauren.

–Donna Frost, Touring singer/songwriter/recording artist www.donnafrost.com