Mother Mourning
Ebook
This collection consists of thirty-five poems expressing the grieving process for the death of the author's mother. It is organized into five chronological sections: "The Days," "The Weeks," "The Months," "The Year," and "Beyond." This organization reflects the effects that time has had upon the author's grieving process. Some of the poems explicitly concern the death of the mother, while others focus upon the emotional effects of her death upon the author. Though the poems contain philosophical and religious/spiritual elements, the poems' contents are a result of whatever seemed relevant to expressing the particular shade of emotion the author felt at that time. The final section, "Beyond," suggests the continuation of the process and the possibility that, in some form, it will never end, though the intensity diminishes as time progresses.
“John Zedolik pierces the core of an agony ladened with grief where the dark edges of loss strand through each poem. We are taken on a journey where the spirit of his mother lives in each breath of memory. Resolution may culminate in some sense of moving forward; yet it is clear the future will always appear incomplete as in The Circle; acceptance may seem to have been met, yet it never quite reaches a closure.”
—Patricia Ann Mayorga, editor-in-chief, Poets’ Espresso Review
“John Zedolik’s latest collection is a study in how to process grief through language. His cycle of poems juxtaposes images of the solidity of the earth against the weightlessness of one who ‘has left this coil / and will not return.’ In reaching across this distance, forging communion with a subject ‘translated to silence, / the language that lacks / all tongue,’ he opens the way to a grace of remembrance and renewal.”
—Michael Centore, editor, Today’s American Catholic
- Title: Mother Mourning
- Author: John Zedolik
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666760965, 9781666760958, 1666760951, 9781666760941, 1666760943, 166676096X
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666760965
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-18T20:32:13Z
John Zedolik is an adjunct English professor at Chatham University and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. In 2019, he published a full-length collection, entitled Salient Points and Sharp Angles, and in 2021 published his second collection, entitled When the Spirit Moves Me, which is spiritually themed. His iPhone is his primary poetry notebook, and John hopes to continue to use it fruitfully to craft this ancient art.