Review: What Mothers Withhold by Elizabeth Kropf

Source: Publisher

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What Mothers Withhold is a chapbook of poems by Elizabeth Kropf about motherhood and all the joy, grief, fear, pain, and, of course, love that accompanies it. It’s about the wishes mothers have for their children, how they long to protect them from the harsh truths of the world at all costs.

Kropf captures the power and strength of women during childbirth, as well as the powerlessness and anger and grief that accompanies the loss of a pregnancy — and what some women have to endure to become pregnant in the first place. Kropf writes in “Unraveling”: “we cannot cut these threads tangled around/our fingers, spun so tight. The children we/loved without sight/of them.”

These poems also touch on the loss of control women have over their bodies when they are pregnant; in “The Cost of Obedience,” Kropf writes: “naked in a paper gown/I am without a voice/I nod and accept. I do not say no.”

What Mothers Withhold is not just about withholding; it’s about enduring, fighting, hoping. To me, it read like a love letter from a mother to her children, and a mother’s affirmation of her own strength, a recounting of the journey to motherhood — the joy as well as the pain. This short collection of poems should resonate with anyone who has carried a child close to her heart. While their experiences are different, many of the emotions are the same, and Kropf’s poems push them all to the forefront in What Mothers Withhold.

To read the title poem, and Kropf’s inspiration, check out this guest post.

To learn more about the book and follow the blog tour, click here.