I went to a production of Rogers and Hammerstein's Carousel last year. On listening and reading the words of its songs, I was suddenly struck by how almost every song seemed to resonate with me and my emotions about my mother, her family and our relationship.
The next day, after starting to write a couple of poems using the parallel thinking from Carousel, I have just referred to, I realised that maybe this was the trigger to start writing a complete book of poems about my mother.
Having written one on my father after he passed nearly four years ago, and having lost my mother some twenty-six years ago, this seemed the moment. So, start I did...
The poems begin with my reflections on Carousel and me and my mother, then they go back to my mother's early life in the countryside and meeting my father, several relate to the musical's songs. They then move to my childhood with her and my twin brother and finally are about the period after I had left home and then my mother's too early departure from this life.