World of Made and Unmade

July 18, 2016
Changing gears in her elegiac fifth collection, Mead (Money Money Money | Water Water Water) explores parental mortality against the backdrop of a New Mexico landscape that is tied to the author’s heritage and under threat socially and ecologically. Mead grapples with a complicated mother-daughter relationship in unswerving terms, refusing to shirk responsibilities to the surrounding world, in particular the local grape harvest and the issues of migrant workers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Her shifts and movements often occur in conjunction with agricultural cycles: “Rain, and the grape-sugars/ are dropping.// The phone has gone out.” Said shifts and cycles, in turn, are frequently fashioned from actual representations of harvests, floods, and other natural forces frequently evoked by other poets on a symbolic level. As a result, Mead’s earthiness sometimes morphs into otherworldliness. Despite the protracted, harrowing process, Mead rejects self-pity: “The day after my mother died/ we finished the grape harvest.” Incorporated archival documents such as ledgers, photos, and drawings lend a stark palpability to the work. This resolute examination of death holds surprising room for an “emergency sense of humor.” In addressing the relationship of mortality to ideas of resolution, celebration, and homecoming, Mead asks, “How will you spend your courage?” Photos & illus.

August 1, 2016

"How will you spend/ your courage, how// will you spend your life?" Mead (Money Money Money]Water Water Water) addresses that question repeatedly as she considers the long season of her mother's dying. In untitled poems connected like the strands of a "deep blue yarn," Mead propels readers forward, using plain language that's elegant in its simplicity yet compelling and heartbreaking. Even as she confronts grief and loss, the poet highlights the overriding theme of courage. "Saying you want to die/ is one thing .../ but dying is quite another," she proclaims, further suggesting that love carries us through the process of death as we do what we must to ease the transition for loved ones, and live our lives in honor of them. With its ever-changing cycles of birth and rebirth, nature shows us that life continues, and it indeed provides comfort; perhaps for Mead, tending the vineyards (begun by her grandfather) and her mother's pecan trees is a way of honoring her mother. In the end, finally, it is winter: "The trees ... are losing/ their leaves. The pecans// pop out of their casings--/ready for their winter harvest." VERDICT This accessible work will appeal to a wide range of readers.--Karla Huston, Appleton, WI

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