Amends by Cindy Day

Cindy Day revisits the sometimes disappointing, sometimes devastating scenes of memory in order to recover and redistribute love. Twice a year, sometimes more, / I drive from my present into my past, she writes in the first poem in the collection, and a few stanzas later, almost humorously, I practice lowering my expectations. But as Day writes bravely and sometimes ironically through a process of recovery, she reveals that her speakers need not travel back in time to re-discover old losses. Alienation and fear arise often in the lived, moment-to-moment mundanity of sober life. And when a speaker claims with slight disbelief, It must be me / you love, we know this as a fundamental, healing self-love. And Day is right, Love is too small a word for it. Indeed, these poems finally enact a courageous acceptance.

–Jesse Nissim, author of Day cracks between the bones of the foot

This is a book about returning, returning to the mystery of a wounded childhood, returning to examine the inescapable legacy of inherited alcoholism, returning to say “all the things that could never be said.” Cindy Day’s lyric narratives take us on a journey toward healing and forgiveness, toward making restitution, not only to others who might’ve been hurt along the way, but to the restored self who, in the end, can finally say “yes.” How fortunate we are to encounter such wisdom, and generosity of spirit.

–Eileen Moeller author of Firefly, Brightly Burning

“Fear is a story I tell myself,” the narrator of Amends tells us. It is a painful but poised story in this graceful first collection of poems. Through a childhood where “being herself / is wrong” and adulthood battles with alcoholism, these poems are crafted with a quiet bravery that belies their protagonist’s uncertainties. “Who would I be if I were not this / ratty victim?” she asks in the title poem—then shows us, in the book’s moving and assured conclusion. Amends is an impressive debut.

–Philip Memmer, author of The Storehouses of the Snow