Terminal Maladies

In this tender debut, Nebeolisa witnesses and mourns the death of his mother from cancer, recounting how a “seed-like tumor/ [that had] been in her thigh for twenty-seven years” grew to the size of a “pumpkin.” Nebeolisa’s attention to his mother’s changing body is meticulously and compassionately observed, from “the chemo rash/ on the back of her hand” to her coughing, “like the sound/ of maize seeds in the maws of a grinder.” Compounding the poet’s grief is his move from Nigeria to the United States for his education, which diminishes his relationship with his mother to phone calls and gnaws him with guilt: “I did not want to describe the little things/ I was enjoying in the US,” he confesses, “the endless days of uninterrupted electricity.” His mother—steadfast, warm, and rooted in faith—responds with love, support, stoicism, and sadness, as does his sister, who becomes their mother’s end-of-life caregiver. Nebeolisa’s poems are rich with familial and emotional nuances, and are left artfully unresolved. A robust assemblage of dreamscapes, conversations, prayers, and meditations on life and death, this collection humanely reckons with the realities of losing a parent. (Sept.)