Family Fictions

Melanie Marttila is a Sudbury-based freelance writer and writing
consultant.

Elizabeth Rhett Woods’s third poetry collection is divided into four
sections. The first, “The Female Line,” is an exploration of the
poet’s female ancestors. In solid, dramatic poems that evoke time,
place, and emotion, Woods discovers from where—or rather from
whom—her best and worst qualities derive.

“Diary of a Divorce,” the second section, is a series of
reflections on the process of divorce. Love may not on its own make a
good marriage, these poems suggest, but it is just as true that divorce
does not mean that love was never present, or that it will fade once the
union of marriage has been dissolved. The poems in this section are
essentially journal entries; the self-effacing comments Woods inserts
into many of them have the unfortunate effect of undercutting their
revelations.

A darker but ultimately more fruitful exploration awaits the reader in
“Meditations on Tabu.” The multifaceted poems in this section merit
multiple readings. Finally, Woods draws us out of the darkness with her
final section, “An Ideal Marriage,” which presents realistic
reflections on a mature relationship. Family Fictions would be a solid
investment for most poetry and literature collections.