ReviewStack: McAllister's Mates Fifteen
Hi all
A very important and courageous piece I’d like to share with you, speaking as someone who isn’t directly affected by infertility - I was still deeply moved. If you have been affected personally by this issue, then I truly believe you need to read this.
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An ongoing series of reviews of some of the wonderful articles, poems, and stories I’ve discovered on Substack (and other places) and more importantly the beautiful souls behind the works.
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I've written a few pieces on Substack and elsewhere about how I see poetry as a vehicle. We often speak of being “moved” by art - usually when something touches our emotional core, the part of the self we all too often neglect or imprison behind walls of routine and distraction. Sometimes poetry will transport us back to that well of feeling, often despite our resistance. With most poems (even the best ones), this is a temporary moment, but hopefully, it is a meaningful reminder of who we really are.
Some poems, however, not only momentarily reunite us with our truer, nobler selves, they also transport that very spirit. Such writings can lift our hearts out of a dark cave of turmoil. They can even broaden our horizons with emotions and experiences that we never considered, yet we live that moment through the author’s words.
Such poems are powerful, and as such, they ask much of us as readers. However, authoring such poems is often exhausting in ways that can not be easily described. Downsizing is such a poem. This is a brave piece of writing, and I can only try and imagine how difficult it was for Ellie to record and process the incredibly complicated feelings around infertility. To share something so deeply personal with the world is a true act of courage and something to be congratulated. I firmly believe this poem has been a true help to people facing the most difficult of times and a subject not discussed enough.
The poem addresses the feelings of loneliness and closed possibilities eloquently and honestly. I’d like to quote the opening lines:
“I suppose you and I never did fit the mould.
Didn’t meet those expecting expectations.”
These two lines (and I'd also like to point out the masterful use of alliteration) have, I think, twin messages buried within them. I’m not a parent (and do not feel the need to become one), but I can imagine how expecting parents must feel - incredibly excited about the new life coming into the world. How they can share their worldview with this new life, encouraging them to be their own person. Perhaps even anticipating (and hoping for) the clash of the coming teenager clashing with their values and striking out in the world. The other perhaps more direct interpretation may be the unfairness of seeing parents and children together. I imagine that must create very real, very human feelings of frustration and sadness. Why were my dreams stolen from me? Seeing others “fit” some mould and being so much more fortunate - I can only imagine the depth of feeling.
The next part of the poem gently interrogates society's conventions of getting a career, settling down, and finding a spouse. Again, I believe I can see multiple interpretations of this. I imagine this might be a hope that this new life would have struck out against convention, defined their own vision of happiness, and bravely pursued it. I also think it has a much more direct message criticising society's deafness to the experience of infertility. We don't see anywhere near enough public discourse around the subject and nowhere near enough counselling facilities for those who have lived through the trauma. Our social machinery is all too reluctant for anything to disrepute its grinding ever onward. It’s particularly resistant to its key components (i.e. US) acting too human.
Then comes, for me, the most heartbreaking lines of the poem:
“At least until the tide turns, the fledglings fly,
you discard the job, and start to take things easy.”
The image of watching a child grow up, strike out on their own, maybe even grandchildren? Endlessly branching possibilities that can't be realised. Again, the writing is honest, eloquent, and I sincerely believe, helpful to anyone in this incredibly difficult situation.
The final lines sum up everything that has come before. The realisation that this particular dream won't come true at this time.
“Is that the opposite of growing up?
Is there a word for the particular kind of heartbreak”
The last two lines are particularly evocative, painting a picture of parents watching their children leave home to chase their dreams of university, romance, or adventure. Those parents then have to make the shift to a very different life without the trials and tribulations of caring for the children. The difference here being that the forced shift in perspective and future plans comes before that story of a young person growing into their own life.
“in which it dawns on you it’s time to downsize
without any of the eggs ever having hatched?”
Ellie's work is beautiful and therapeutic in a way that I'm just not seeing in modern culture. I implore you to support her writing - as I wrote in the opening, poetry is a tool. This poem, however, goes beyond that. This is medicine and all the more needed in a worryingly ever more superficial society obsessed with perfection and image.
I hope you enjoy these beautiful works as much as I enjoyed reading them and writing about them.
You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Substack has proven to be a treasure trove and I already have a few more gifted writers lined up for my next review newsletter.