Memoir of a Dead Woman by Barbara Fleming Phillips

In Memoirs of a Dead Woman, Barbara Fleming Phillips casts the reader in a role somewhat like a priest beside a death bed. We follow the woman’s thoughts as she recalls sins small and large, bad decisions, and historical forces that culminate in her lonely death. Trapped in an age-ravaged body, warehoused in a care facility, she is unable to ask for help. Attendants fail to notice her uneaten meals or her acute symptoms, her excruciating pain. Structured as a single long poem, the book is divided into sections by notations of time — like notes on a hospital chart or a book of hours. Fleming-Phillips’s spare, powerful style allows the reader to experience the full horror of this woman’s suffering, both physical and emotional. The rhythm of her story telling is exquisite; her vision is stark but compassionate.

–Sherry Chandler