Book Reviews
Virgin
Mother
of
Three
by
I.
A
Crumpton
Poems
and
prose
of
survival
through
a
heartbreaking
divorce
written
from
a
woman's
perspective.
Virgin Mother of Three, by I. A. Crumpton, is poetry and prose about the end of love and how a 40-something woman, newly divorced, adjusts to the prospects of loving again: "It feels good ... knowing/ someone is interested" she says in "Practice Man." "Dinner? ... hmmm ... maybe./ Sounds safe ... and I could practice./ Oh, you know, that social/ intercourse we call dating. // I could never go/ there, I'm just not ready./ But, I could practice ... Yes, you/ may be my practice man."
"What an interesting phenomenon ... " the author writes in the poem that gives the title to the collection. "The heartbreak and disappointment/ The anger and insensitivity/ The soul searching and acceptance/ The signing and the sadness/ The re-entry and insecurity/ The excitement and desire/ The playful new virginity/ What an interesting phenomenon .../ Divorce."
Anger surfaces often in the poems of the first section, "The End." "The phone call/ The shock/ The confusion/ The humiliation/ The composure/ The cover-up/ The necessary excuses/ The flight" ... "The doubt/ The doubt/ Forever the doubt/ The strength/ The decision stands// I cannot write down/ this anger/ and pain/ that I feel!// I have asked/ you to be gone."
"Oh, my children," the author writes in "You Are Loved," "what you have had to endure,/ the sadness, the anger, the guilt/ and abstraction."
The book ends with a note of self-confidence, a prose description of a solo camping trip: "Sipping her coffee, she watched the sunrise and toasted the new day." This is a new beginning. --Dan Barnett, The Buzz
