Review
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Title: Paradoxical Glory
Author: Nancy Heiss
Publisher: BCC Press
Genre: Poetry
Year Published: 2022
Number of Pages: 128
Binding: Soft
ISBN: 978-1948218405
Price: 9.99
Reviewed by Kristine Anderson for the Association for Mormon Letters
I am new to poetry, as is Nancy Heiss, the poet, and author of Paradoxical Glory. I would say Heiss knows her way around this place more than I do; but to me, poetry is meant to be read by more than folks who already exist in this space. And this is a perfect work for folks like me who don’t spend much time here.
Heiss is many things: a Mormon, a woman, a mother, and a creator. Themes running through Paradoxical Glory include faith, heavenly parents, childhood, motherhood, womanhood, birth, death, grief, loss, identity, and purpose. I suppose one of the valuable things about poetry and all literature is its ability for us to step into the point of view of the narrator and understand more what life is from that vantage point. While I believe all types of folks could benefit from viewing and feeling the complexities of many of the types of Mormon womanhood, I will give fair warning: if you’re in the anguish stage of infertility, this book may not be what you’re looking for.
My own journey contains many complexities of Mormon womanhood: infertility, IVF baby, foster care, a failed adoption, and second IVF resulting in three unexpected caboose babies. Twenty years ago, I had an ache so deeply for motherhood I felt I might be swallowed up; these days I drown in too much motherhood. It is with these lenses I stepped into Nancy Heiss’ narration. In the introduction, she recounts the realization that motherhood, while wonderful, isn’t as fulfilling as she had imagined it would be; that it was never meant to be one’s entire identity, and in search of something more: she brought this work into existence.
I knew I would enjoy Paradoxical Glory from the poem “Looking Down” on page 8. Standing at the base of a Saharan pyramid with her own baby slung on her chest, she notices a lifeless mother fox at the base. As everyone looks up, she looks down, and mourns for that mama and its motherless kits:
“Up is where we find God, but
Down is where we do God’s work.
So, look up, yes.
But, oh, look down.”
The bulk of poems in the middle of the book are about childhood and motherhood. There are other moments in her poetry that speak to me with so much familiarity it catches in my throat:
“I love being a wife and mother,
And yet I miss myself.” (The Woman Behind the Curtain, p. 24)
“Motherhood can feel at once
Like too much and
Not enough.” (Just Right, p. 51)
Later as Heiss writes about the loss of her mother-in-law, I feel a call back to the grief over the mother fox at the pyramid, when a neighbor drops by baked goods to share a cry and let them know they were loved:
“I didn’t need a cookie;
I needed to be wept with.” (Burnt Offerings, p. 105)
The neighbor looked down and mourned with those who mourn: true religion.
Upon reflection, I’d say it’s a marvel the worlds contained within a fairly stereotypical stay-at-home mother of five children. I hope as you read Paradoxical Glory that you will like reading about the complex lives of the kind of women we all know like I did.