Published in 2019
116 pages
Kate Daniels is the Edwin Mims Professor of English at Vanderbilt University, a former Guggenheim fellow in poetry, and a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. She also teaches writing at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. Her previous collections of poetry include A Walk in Victoria’s Secret and Four Testimonies.
What is this book about?
The poems of In the Months of My Son’s Recovery inhabit the voice and point of view of the mother of a heroin addict who enters recovery. With clear perception and precise emotional tones, Kate Daniels explores recovery experiences from multiple, evolving vantage points, including active addiction, 12-step treatment, co-occurring mental illness and addiction (known as dual diagnosis), and relapse. These intimately voiced, harrowing poems reveal the collateral damage that addiction inflicts on friends and families, in addition to the primary damage sustained by addicts themselves. Offering bold descriptions of medical processes, maternal love, and the potential for hope as an antidote to despair, this timely collection offers a firsthand account of the many crises at the heart of the opioid epidemic.
