Snarl

In Snarl, D. Walsh Gilbert shares her mother with us. We see her mother's fight against breast cancer and struggle at life in rural New Hampshire, so different from the sounds and bustle of New York City where she was raised. This is an intimate glimpse into the dynamics of a family going through fear and loss. Snarl's story is poignant. It's beautifully told through Gilbert's evocative poetry.

-Sharon Smith, author, reflection

In this heart-wrenching collection of poems, Gilbert admonishes poets to "Turn the fallow fields / and leave your pawprints in the ashen dust. / Write the words." In telling the story of her mother's fatal secret left unshared until the very end, she leaves an indelible mark on the page and the reader. The poems combine feral imagery and subtle wit to convey her passage through grief to a complex understanding of her mother's choice. A brilliant, moving work!

-Jefferson Singer, author, In Common Things and Professor of Psychology Emeritus, Connecticut College

D. Walsh Gilbert's Snarl is devastating exploration of love, loss, and betrayal, using stunning images and metaphors to bring to life the agony of her mother's death from breast cancer. The poet draws a vivid picture of her mother, beginning with how she made "a tough-guy name for herself" in the Bronx with "her gutter filthy-hands" through her years of denial "of the suspicious spot" growing "pea to marble / to quail-sized egg." The "snarl" at the center of this extraordinary series of poems takes on multiple meanings to explore a variety of betrayals and heartbreaks, not the least of which is the unbearable truth that her mother's illness was kept a secret from the poet. This book is a gift to the reader, a devastating, beautiful "snarl" of pain and loss.

-Edwina Trentham, past instructor of Graduate Literal Studies at Wesleyan University, and author, Stumbling into the Light