Swallowing My Mother

by Catherine Moss

Catherine Moss is a jeweller of words. Every poem in Swallowing My Mother is carefully crafted and polished, but beneath the polish lies great emotional risk. Whether she is dealing with childhood loss, her passion for gardening, or the many and various exotic places she has encountered, Moss is an artist who is not afraid to expose painful, sharp-edged revelations.

Reviews

Moss … moves slyly from descriptive to declamatory speech, allowing the poems to burrow from straightforward narrative and description to archetypal symbol. I like that: it looks easy, and I know it isn’t. The fact that Ms Moss is well-travelled shows not only in the variety of her landscapes, but in the dexterous camera work. ~Richard Stevenson, The Danforth Review

Moss is a poet whose joy in the variety of language, and the variety of the nature it reflects and shapes, sounds from almost every line. ~Alexander Rettie, Alberta Views

Catherine Moss has an instinct for language, awakening rhythms and images that are at once lyrical and sparse. Swallowing My Mother is an enticing and exciting new book of poetry whose merit lies not only in its literary value, but also in its insightful account of personal and collective experiences. ~Jennifer Bronson, League of Canadian Poets

Samples

Turning Back the Sheets

	after the children have gone
	and dusk settles
	on urban poplars
	like hens settle on straw
	I open the kitchen door
	and call my grandmother back
	from memory
	from the garden
	from where she once called me

she has gathered the hens into their house
left them idly
questioning their eggs
in the early dark
	hunched over the garden fork
(taken to parry the slash
of the rooster's claws)
she walks back
between rows of vegetables
	digs a dandelion's ivory root
from the dark mouth
of soil
	tells herself
tomorrow
I must pick gooseberries

this evening
at her walnut desk in the drawing room
she will write: dear child
after you left
I went to change the bed
but the sheets were warm
and still held
the smell of your body in their arms