Pink Lady

Only Denise Duhamel could have written these poems. Pink Lady takes a common but often overlooked subject—the decline of an elderly parent—and finds in it all the meat of the human heart. Duhamel shares not just the painful moments but the intimate, the illuminating, and the joyful. And all along we have the humor of the speaker and her resilient mother who complains of the ‘wackadoodle’ in the White House and the COVID-induced absurdity that forces her nurses to suit up like astronauts. Forget Gideon’s Bible; it’s Pink Lady that should be in every hospital nightstand.

These clear-eyed poems gracefully bear witness to the end of a beloved parent’s life: the indignities, role reversals, and moments of panic and tenderness. The whole crazy matrix of pain and unanticipated consolation is revealed with equanimity and deep emotional intelligence. The COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 US presidential election provide a backdrop and a sense of the political freefall, turmoil, and fear that dominated public life back then. Did I weep while reading this humane, bright-spirited, heart-rending memoir-in-poems? Yes!

In Pink Lady, a memoir in poems, Duhamel allows us to walk with her as she witnesses the steady decline of her mother’s physical and cognitive abilities. When my own mother began this phase, I became wedged between crushing sadness and trying not to think about it, but of course, I was consumed by it. Duhamel composes a riveting portrait of her mother at life’s close—and her mother becomes many mothers, perhaps all our aging mothers. At the same time, we recognize the speaker as someone whose efforts to cope might mirror our own in a similar situation. Poetry should help us bear what we cannot bear. With piercing empathy and surprising grace, these poems do that.