A mother’s grieving process:
From hell to a new bird
Swan on the river - poems of grief and transcendence
Dejah Beauchamp
Idle Mind Press
ISBN: 978-0-9977412-0-9
by Laura Demelza Bosma
Dejah Beauchamp wrote her poetry debut Swan on the River to process the loss of
her stillborn daughter Sunrise. The book counts almost one hundred pages with
mainly free verse poetry and is divided in four parts: Life, Death, Resurrection
and Sunrise. The cover is well designed and the book has a jazzy appearance. As
a reader of this book, we get to witness from very close what such a heart
wrenching experience could possibly feel like.
In some poems we are there while it happens, watching over the shoulder
while the mother gives birth. These poems are physical, raw, ruthless.
Illusions lose their masks and what is left is the bare truth. Some of these
poems remind me of Sylvia Plath’s ‘Three women’, one of her least known books
of poetry, divided in the voices of three different women speaking of their
pregnancy, birth experience and after.
These mere observations without meandering are a boot in the face.
Hell is a grave /three feet long /seventeen inches wide
hell / is the green grass that grows/upon it
a blanket /I shall never untuck
What these
words do is drag us to that shockingly small grave. We have to stand there and
agree this is hell. The simple grass, generally something we love is described
as hell as well. Why is the grass hell for the mother? I sense because it is
life going on, over and above the baby, like the mother herself, for the rest
of her life trapped on another level. Hell.. it is a word like a flame that
burns illusions away. A blanket I shall
never untuck. With these words I was dragged beneath the earth and left
breathless. There is no comfort here, as there is no escape from facing death,
sometimes even before any of our simple dreams and hopes are answered. In this
life philosophy hell is not a place you go to after death, but a place on earth
where you can get lost even without committing a sin. Hell is in the
circumstance of losing a child.
Another striking fact-poem is The Secret, where Dejah surprises with a sudden
near postmodern style, mentioning crimes and assaults committed on women,
followed by the repeated question:
What were you wearing?
The effect of the poem is so strong, that the last phrase wherein the
secret gets explained ( I’m glad you were
never born into/this world of men) could possibly have been left out.
In many
poems the ‘I’ in the poems, is looking for the sense of death and how to live
with her loss, exploring different philosophies and religions like Greek
mythology and Christianity. In the section ‘Death’, Death shows up as a person that the mother
tries to communicate with, to gain a deeper understanding. Again, the poem that hits the most, is the
one that coldly describes death’s presence.
Death In The Basement (fragment)
I keep death in the basement
or the attic. But he’s never allowed in the living area,
especially not when we have guests
sometimes I’ll open the cellar door
and let out a hurricane scream
into the darkness
In the
third part of the book, ‘Resurrection’ Dejah writes her daughter alive in a
poem for each life-stage. Though the poems
are beautiful and can be read as essential for the healing process of the
mother, the imagination paints such a rosy picture of life with a daughter that
I can’t believe them. as an outsider reading a poem as a poem without the
context of the others, there seems to be a lack of urgency for the imagination
to do what it does because the direct presence of death is gone. Looking at the
bigger picture though I am fascinated by the open mind of the writer, her ability
to explore parts of her consciousness, her honesty and openness.
Where Dejah does definitely succeed to bring her daughter to life is where her
love for nature can be felt and read in simple but captivating imagery.
And the bees/ kiss flowers that riot/
and blush. The hem / of your dress / is wet / with dew
as you bend/ to kiss the roses/ the lilacs drenched/in sun.
Because this sensual writing definitely is one of Beauchamp’s qualities, I would
have liked to read more of this, replacing words like the ones of the
subheadings, that sometimes seem too big or general.
In The Poem In Which I Re-Write Your
Birth, rosy and pitch-black finally meet to melt together in the face of poetry.
You came out limp and warm perfect
and laughing / glowing with vernix and blood sea foam,
and there were people dolphins / all around us, weeping leaping joyfully -
In the introduction the writer explains the title. The swan stands for the
Paramahamsa, the supreme celestial swan, a fully realized soul that has
completely immersed in God. This is where Dejah finds her daughter, in the realization
that Sunrise is not dwelling with God, but is instead one with de divine. The
last poem of the book, ‘New Bird’ illustrates this in easily understandable,
almost song text-like phrases. This way, Swan on the river doesn’t end on the
last page but instead implies a new beginning. Though some of the poems would
for sure have benefited from an editorial eye for shortening, contrast and
layering, Swan on the river shares a unique and love-filled grieving process and
is a must-read for all the women who share the same experience, doula’s and
anyone interested in exploring the extremes of feminine psychology.
You can purchase the book here
