The Night We Were Dylan Thomas

Like a great photographer, MARA BERGMAN celebrates the moment and detail at the core of memory. Together, her poems show the great changes families experience the free and fearless life of a young woman set alongside a dying mother hanging on so she can hold a great-grandchild, the one-sided conversations we have with the dead. Her dynamism is infectious you are drawn into this familys wonder, love, compassion, grief and happiness. Bergmans poems remind me of Pablo Nerudas belief in the driving force of love: Hold on to that, dont let it get away and one of the fi nal poems, The Happiness, delivers the books message: Before it leaves, I will bury it deep enough to save. After reading these poems, youll feel braced and ready, youll feel wiser and more generous, youll want to hold on to moments that contain your own astonishment. JACKIE WILLS