Night Watch by Mark Belair

“The magic of this book is in its wise, plainspoken narrator, a man experiencing his mother’s death in all its fullness. His shock, his sorrow, and ultimately his acceptance and joy become ours too, as he somehow finds the very words that elude the rest of us in our grief. Destined to find its place alongside “What the Living Do,” this book offers a balm that only poetry can impart.”

–Patricia McCormick, two-time National Book Award finalist

”Beginning with a somber tone in his opening poem, Mourners, Mark Belair explores the harsh reality of growing old, dealing with catastrophic illness, and dying. I was particularly struck by his poem, Dispersals, and the transitional imagery of an elderly couple’s belongings as they move from their long-lived-in home to a small apartment where “…their lives filled again / this time with the gear of the gradually ailing elderly.” While the reader experiences the final days of his mother’s bout with leukemia, Belair relates from a dream “death and decomposition / were not the rest commonly supposed / but an exhausting obligation.” With stark yet thoughtful language, Belair gives us a glimpse of death and dying, but leaves us with hope in the imagery of a bird’s nest, “a gentle, hidden cradle,” promising new life.
Read this little collection and be touched by one man’s journey to recapture his mother’s life and love through her last hours and beyond.”

–Jonathan K. Rice, Editor/Publisher, Iodine Poetry Journal

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]