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Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite
“No responsibilities but/ to sleep, eat and excrete.” Profound words about the beginning of one’s life. It’s poetry; the life of poetry, life in verse. In Fran Abrams’ Gathering Memories, Collecting Dust, a poet explores her life, from the first few hours of existence through adulthood. There are telling moments of childhood, like a lost toy bunny, and the first day of school. Life expands through experiences, from starting college to becoming a parent and then a grandparent. Life’s most vivid moments are defined and expressed with love and care as life carries on.
Fran Abrams’ book, Gathering Memories, Collecting Dust: Poems from Eight Decades of Living, is a memoir written in verse. Using various forms of poetry, the words are simple yet multidimensional as the poet explores her life as it evolves over eight decades, beginning in the 1950s. There is humor in some of these poems, a sense of finding the lighter side of life, even when things become complex and difficult. The last poem in the collection is the title piece of the book, summing up the poet’s life to this moment in time. The collection is all about memories, letting go, holding on to what you have, and making the best of any given situation. Some of these memories are forever retainable, like precious moments with a child, while other memories, some more recent, fade into the dust, like the title of a book just read. The words are warm, reflective, and full of life, because that’s what these lyrical memoirs are all about: life. This is a soothing and contemplative read.
