Can You Smell the Rain? Poems

While I don’t normally pick up imprints from the University of Missouri, in this case, I am so very happy that I did. This reader is aware that there are many wonderful but undiscovered poets, so I am so happy to personally find an amazing one. I hadn’t previously been aware of Patricia Cleary Miller, but her poems are superb and unique. They form a memoir of sorts. The poem “How Long” beautifully expresses a lost love affair in sensual detail. A poem about Chinese foot binding again conveys the pain of accommodating ourselves to love. A Burberry raincoat becomes a poor substitute for youth and love affairs. “Mother is Scrubbing Her Floors” brings us back (as many of her poems do) to the roles assigned to women, the immersion in those roles, and the subsequent loss of self. I think that most women will see themselves and their families in these poems. The poems hold just enough cleverness and humor to mitigate the bite that is found in such acute observations of living.