“At the funeral / the priest said, our sister enters the gates of paradise / in a company of angels. Mom, were you waiting? / I have no mother, your mother’s gone, and / the you that lives on, me, I must learn she is / enough. From this room I see snow. Snow. Tomorrow is your / birthday. This is for you. The snow is melting. I’ve built / a fire. Mom, the fingers of the dead / woman play as if in some paradise, paradise, and / your mouth pinkens to breathing red and smiles. I am here, / your daughter, wanting. When there are gray / clouds, I don’t mind the gray clouds. I’m all for you. All from you”
Honor Moore’s first collection of poetry, Memoir, shows her dazzling talent to turn her real-life experiences into universal emotions. First published in 1988, the collection takes the reader through the heart of strong experience in the shadow of AIDS, sexual abuse, the struggle for accommodation between the sexes, nuclear threat—the multilayered fabric of modern life and love. The poems include sapphics, sestinas, and even a hendecasyllabic arrangement, showing Moore’s power to breathe new life into traditional forms.
Memoir is part of the Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporaries Series, which reissues significant early books by important contemporary poets. Moore’s book is the one hundredth title in the series.