Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother's Poetic Journey
by Margaret Dubay Mikus
Three Heart Press


"...the silence has a presence of if its own."

Mikus takes her two boomerang kids' independent-yet-dependent stage to poetry, offering raw and heart-warming insights to readers. She webs her own journey as a parent to theirs, creating a sense of closeness and intimacy with other mothers. The result is a book rich in reflective understanding of parenthood, and the normal, natural, and necessary process of kids' moving away from, and sometimes, moving back to their parents.

Mikus allows readers a few glimpses of her inner life, and these are laid down through the flow of her poetry. Her poems are chronologically arranged, recreating the emotional and psychosocial life of a mother and a poet. Her poems are also grouped according to the developmental individuating events of her kids, a common and universal experience of motherhood, all the while reminding us of a parent's unqualified love for her children.

Moving fluidly among her poems, Mikus closes her poetry with a hopeful piece on rebirth – a poem about her kids and their trying again by sending out resumes, and her reminder that they are always close to her heart whatever may happen. By utilizing the practice of evaluation, reflection, and adaptation Mikus presents powerful pieces that compel readers to see the poetic form as a vibrant medium of expression. She also succeeded in demonstrating the power of creative arts in transformation and healing. Mikus' portrayal of her relationship with her kids and husband is a reservoir from which readers can glean general relational insights that can be applied in other relational settings.

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