Book Review: 3 A.M. Poems by Susan Aylward In this contemplative and moving collection by Taos poet Phyllis Hotch, we travel through her experiences of remembrance and daily reality, alternately questioning and accepting the transition she’s going through. Mortality permeates her opening poem, “3 A.M.”: The hour. 3 A.M. Nothing but a feeling, not of being dead because we, I, cannot know what dead feels like Part 1 reveals her observations and feelings on her husband’s illness, change, love, fear, the inevitability of decline, and the gifted moments of connection in-between. In “Nightwatch”: Some nights clouds drift across the moon. This night sky is saturated with stars and I’m a whirling part of the cosmos. His arm stretches out to me and I whisper wish you were here. In Part 2 she shares portraits of her husband’s fellow nursing home patients, reflecting the toll aging and illness takes on their diminishing lives. The poem “Sy” reminds me of my Uncle Ricky, who was also a dapper young baritone: Who does an old man sing to when he wants to sing? The baritone that used to boom now croaks if he could he would sing with the radio, smile remembering when he changed his shirt, combed his hair,
Santa Fe Literary Review 2014
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