Betty MacDonald’s book of poems with a both whimsical and provocative title: All My Monsters Are Dead or Why I Love Being Old, (Codhill Press 2023) is a rewarding read in many ways. She is an author who speaks directly to the reader. One feels as if one is sitting down with Betty over a tea (as I have on several occasions) and chatting about age, experience and how time creates a three-fold path of past, present and future.
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Ms. MacDonald is a fearless writer, not because she is in confrontation with growing old. The book (and writer) doesn’t seem to be leading a charge up the hill Teddy Roosevelt-style, sword in hand, against the battlements of ever-present aging. Instead, many of the poems treat senescence as the natural process of the body and mind. However, as so well expressed in this book, this doesn’t hinder the creative process and its ability to articulate the depths and variety of ideas and feelings gathered by the writer over nearly nine decades. And even more important, the writer creates poems that share this wonderful gift with readers. There is occasional sadness, and an element of grief in several pieces, but mostly conveyed is the wonderment of living a long life and the capacity to share this with others.
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I recently heard Ms. MacDonald read selections from this book. An accomplished and witty presenter of her own work, the pieces spoke even more deeply, with compassionate insight. A poem that resonated was “Thanksgiving Misgiving”, a piece that shares a past and present from the most American of holiday meals. Here is a brief taste:
“My mom was a good cook,
Although her brand was not perfection.
Everything she prepared was just right.
Just right is a less showy form of Perfect.
Just right is Perfect’s no-nonsense, more practical stepsister.”
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We’re in the presence of an elder who hands down wisdom that’s been gained over a lifetime’s journey. And this wisdom is never sermonized, but delicately presented with the ease of a personable voice.
One of the strongest poems in the book is: “The Exit Sign Is Out of Order”. I quote this short work here in its entirety. This, among others shows the range and depth of Ms. MacDonald’s poetry”:
I awoke to my depression lifting. /Slivers of darkness, like invisible razor thin blades/Slid from my being./The process of abandoning this murky pit was beginning./A glimmer of change titillates me with its offer:/I don’t have to remain in this bleak cell of my imagination/ Where the exit sign is out of order.
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Many of the pieces are prose poems. Some are in poetic structure while others are presented in prose paragraphs, such as “A Woman of My Age!” and “Grandmothers”. But whatever form the poems take, the poet’s voice remains constant. There’s a steady reassurance to this work
She can speak powerfully and then in an intimate whisper. Poems alternate from the objective “April Is Not the Cruelest Month”, to the subjective, “Dancing”. One of the benefits of reading this volume is the scope of its subject matter. One can read a poem describing the natural world, “Music” and then step into a small circle of more confessional writing, “Getting Shorter” and “My Birthday is the Only Holiday I Like”.
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I would recommend All My Monsters Are Dead or Why I Love Being Old as a book to be read by people of all ages. It’s an octogenarian’s ageless work; one that will never grow old because it will constantly renew us with its ideas and the author’s steady voice.
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You can read Ms. MacDonald’s poem “Standoff with a Blue Heron”, the last poem in the book, and a memoir, “Tiny Lee, the Teenage Queen,”, here on Lightwood. Scroll to our Search button and insert the author’s name and click.
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Writer/actor Betty MacDonald contributed to the writing of and performed in TMI’s “What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting.” Her essay “Before Roe v. Wade” appears in the anthology Get Out of My Crotch! Her work is included in the anthologies 80 Things to Do When You Turn 80, Open House, and the recently released Better with Age. Betty has read frequently at Spoken Word, a monthly gathering of writers and readers in Kingston, NY, and at TMI Project events in Rhinebeck, Woodstock, Kingston, NY. She presented her essay “First Love” for Read650 at the Cell Theatre in New York City. She performed “First Love” again for Read650’s Best Of event at Vassar College. Her Read 650’s Mother’s Day presentation, “Daughter of Twins” is available on YouTube. Also, on YouTube her reading of her essay “Not Jewish Enough” from Read650’s event Jew-ish. Betty hosts Words Carry Us, a series of Livestream readings from Green Kill in Kingston, NY.
For more than 35 years, storytelling has influenced Betty’s work as a performer with Community Playback Theatre, an improvisational acting company in the Hudson Valley.
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