| |
Dancing with My Daughter: Poems of Love, Wisdom and Dreams
by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer
Category: Biography / Autobiography
81 pages; ISBN: 0-8294-1768-0
Rating: 10/10 (Ratings explained)
Reviewer: Christine Louise Hohlbaum
Review Mother-Daughter Dance
Jayne Jaudon Ferrer possesses an unmatchable wit and precision of language which shine through in her latest collection of poems, Dancing with My Daughter: Poems of Love, Wisdom and Dreams. Breaking down the stages of her daughter’s development from infancy to adulthood, each phase is represented by a dance: Waltz, Jitterbug, Tango, Samba, and Freestyle.
In the first section, Waltz, she shows a warmth and willingness to raise her daughter with dream-like wonder. Toddlerhood emerges in Jitterbug, and the dreams are less surreal. She tackles reality head on, for instance, in the poem “Mother Magic,” which speaks to the heart of motherhood. Ferrer describes her daughter’s foul mood as she awakens from her nap. With great triumph, she pulls her daughter out of her “royal huff.” All the while, she acknowledges her own mother strength. Her daughter, the “Royal Highness” breaks out of her mood, declaring her ability to break the magic spell “because I am a Princess and I can do anything!” Ferrer looks on and replies inwardly, “Well, well. I am a mother, and I can, too.”
Tango and Samba are both heart-breaking and witty. We know our daughters will say they hate us, but we dread the day it arrives. Ferrer removes the chrage of her daughter’s emotions with supreme love and banter. Pressing her daughter clean her room, Ferrer treats this common issue with such grace and fun: “fill your ears with the mighty music of the vacuum cleaner, your lungs with the derelict dust of this dreadful domain.” The reader can virtually smell the odiferous wet towel seeping mildew into the carpet.
Freestyle witnesses a mother’s mixed emotions of letting go and wanting to hold on tight forever. The wisdom she imparts to her daughter as she prepares her wedding is telling of her love and affection. Ferrer’s desire to give her daughter the world is palpable throughout the collection. She manages not only to offer up a “place you call Home” for her daughter, but a poetic respite for her readers, too.
The cadance of her poetry resembles a dance. Sometimes it is a Western swing, other times a true waltz. Harmony and discord meet in her lines. Mothers and daughters clash, cry, yell, and console each other through life’s passions. Dancing with My Daughter is a wonderful companion for any mother or daughter who dreams big dreams, lives life with passion, and seeks the very best that this world has to offer.
Christine Louise Hohlbaum, American author of Diary of a Mother (2003), SAHM I Am (2005), and “American Housewife Abroad” at AnotherChapter.com, is a freelance writer living near Munich, Germany, with her husband and two children. Visit her Web site at: http://www.DiaryofaMother.com
 Buy Dancing with My Daughter: Poems of Love, Wisdom and Dreams at amazon.com
|
|
