Poetry Friday — Best Books on my Bedside Table, II

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I mentioned the other day that I’d been crying over all my good reading this fall.

I seem to have chosen an emotionally heavy stack for myself lately — sometimes we just do that — and that includes books for adults as well as young people.

Today’s Poetry Friday feature is no exception.

This spare novel-in-verse, written by the ever-thoughtful Susan Taylor Brown, tells such a big story I had to check the page numbers a few times to be sure it wasn’t longer than I thought it was.

Hugging the Rock lets us in on a whole year of Rachel’s life-without-her-mom in poems that are both conversational and crystalline. The first-person perspective combined with Rachel’s coming-of-age and family circumstances make this a lump-in-the-throat read from the first page to the last.

Here. You’ll see what I mean…

Every morning
Sara meets me at the corner
so we can walk to school together.
We’ve been best friends
forever
and I’ve never kept a secret from her
until now.
I want to tell her
except telling her
will make it more real.

(excerpted from the poem School)

I realize Mom is more than gone.
She’s lost
and doesn’t want to be found.

(excerpted from the poem Lost)

Sara says I look different
but when I check the mirror
I look just the same
to me.

(excerpted from the poem Summer Vacation)

There’s all this and then there’s Rachel’s dad, the rock of the title, who isn’t perfect but is there, in both body and heart.
He about broke mine a few times… in a good way.

Thank you, Susan, for writing such a bare and open book.
It felt good to fall into it as a way to remember the fundamental basics of what a kid needs.
What anyone needs, really…

14 Responses to “Poetry Friday — Best Books on my Bedside Table, II”

  1. saralholmes

    I love Susan’s LJ posts, but I haven’t had the chance to read Hugging the Rock yet. My TBR pile is teetering. Thank you for sharing these lovely excerpts. Worth crying and raving over.

  2. Anonymous

    Tanita Says 🙂

    Absolutely adored this book. Cried and cried and wanted to hug that Dad and Rachel, and all of them. I was reminded, when I finished reading it, how important it was to be a rock.

  3. susanwrites

    Thank you Liz (and Sara and Tanita)for sharing about my book. It is so touching to me when I hear from people who “get” exactly what I was trying to do with the story. Makes me want to sit down and work on more poetry. 🙂