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Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite
A Decade in Gloucester: Reflections on History and Home by Laura Plummer is a debut chapbook that weaves together poetry and memoir to explore the rich location of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Through her journey of discovering her Finnish roots, Plummer creates an intimate portrait of both personal identity and communal history. Her narrative transforms the coastal city into more than just a setting, as Gloucester becomes a living, breathing character that holds the stories of generations within its streets and shores. The work delves deep into themes of belonging, heritage, and the powerful connections that bind people to places, offering readers a thoughtful meditation on how the ancestral past can influence their present understanding of home. The intersection of the author's Finnish heritage with the city's multicultural history is interesting to unpack, and Plummer's talent for making personal experiences feel universal allows readers to reflect on their own connections to places and ancestry and be inspired to learn more, just as she was.
Author Laura Plummer brings heartwarming sensitivity to her exploration of personal and historical narratives. I was drawn into her poetic vision of Gloucester, where every carefully chosen word builds layers of meaning and connection through metaphor, mood, and connotation. Her confident style and ability to blend the lyrical with the historical create a unique experience that lingers long after the last page, bringing back images and memories of a place I've never been to, but now truly feel like I know. The way Plummer handles complex themes of identity feels authentic and grounded, with some genuinely heartbreaking moments of realization, like the scene in the graveyard where the stonecutters don't even get headstones of their own when they die. It was wonderful to see someone exploring such peaceful coexistence of all sorts of different heritages and backgrounds, especially in modern divisive times. Overall, I highly recommend A Decade in Gloucester to anyone interested in beautiful, thoughtful writing about place, identity, and the deep connections between personal and communal history.
