A rich, experimental, and deeply-layered evocative examination of place and motherhood during a time of national and global crisis
Cecily Parks navigates womanhood, motherhood, and place as the environment—and a nation—unravels during a time of pandemic and socio-political turmoil in The Seeds. Deeply rooted in natural imagery, each poem threads the personal with the ecological. A harvest is not merely a harvest: it becomes a metaphor for what a mother can offer her daughters in terms of advice and guidance. Extinct fish, which suddenly find themselves alive again and swimming Texas waters, offer individuals some serious survival lessons, and the Rio Grande’s ebbs, flows, and undulations are ominous in their predictions for humankind’s future.
In other poems, the speaker dares to reveal the parts of themselves most individuals prefer to keep hidden. In one poem, the speaker reckons with the most violent and angry parts of themselves as the “evening came at the end of a day / that I’d consumed by saying brutal things to the people I love most.” The delicate balance between self-awareness, self-acceptance, and the acceptance of one’s ever-changing circumstances root these poems and give them an accessible universality. The speaker’s keen sense of self, nonetheless, is also heartbreaking: They stand in juxtaposition to the rest of the human world, which seems unaware of what is happening in it.
“The Rio Grande,” centered by an image-laden discussion of the ongoing immigration debate in the US, best embodies this concept. The poem’s emotional power lies in its duality, as well as the speaker’s personification of the river. The summer, observed by the Rio Grande, is one it “will / remember as / the summer the children / were taken / from fathers / and mothers.” The poem eventually waxes into environmental commentary as the river succumbs to “the law of drought” which “has delivered / its trouble.” Similarly, “Amistad Gambustia,” in its contemplation of a thought-to-be-extinct fish species, offers “What did it feel like / to lose your only home / is a question you do not have to answer.” Thus, place—and ultimately displacement—are subjects from which the collection’s speaker does not shy away.
The Seeds is a structurally experimental endeavor, too. Lengthy, thematically linked prose poems appear in between shorter, snapshot-like poems. This structure creates an artistic, even emotional, oscillation that parallels the speaker’s encounters with their husband, their daughters, and the natural world. Parks’ collection is definitely a collection appropriate for uncertain times, and its verses act as calm waves that remind its audience that hope exists despite the chaos—if one simply looks to nature and embraces the messages and signs it has to offer.
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