Family Matters: Poems for and about Grandparents and Grandchildren

What a gift to all grandchildren in this heartfelt collection of poems by Judie Rae. The book chronicles the chain of connection between Judie's memories of her own solidly loving grandmother and her experiences as a grandmother on the other side of the equation. My favorite poem is the rueful "Lies We Tell Children" where "I'll always be here for you" from Grandma is received with a grain of salt by a world-weary five-year-old. I love the challenge of the powerful ending: What fractured beauty, this/child of my child, this/sprite, who hops,/ skips a half skip,/slides her hand/ in my hand/and dares me/to cross over.

Gail Entrekin, Editor of Canary Online Literary Magazine, and author of Rearrangement of the Invisible



Through the poems in this collection, Judie Rae conveys the unique magic that can exist between grandmother and grandchild, reminding us that the lessons of love are learned by example, early in life. Her poems include memories of the intimate landscapes of her Canadian childhood at her grandmother's cottage near the Ottawa River. Looking back, Judie wonders whether her grandmother knew how much she loved her, and having read the tender poems, the reader murmurs, "yes, she knew..." Years later, as a grandmother herself, several of Judie's poems report her grandchildren's language in hilarious detail: Go potty 'morrow night... Another weaves past and present: I pat her back/to soothe/this child of my child,/as my grandmother/patted me,/her wrinkled hands, so mild,/now mine/breeching time...

Ellen Dooling Reynard, author of No Batteries Required and Double Stream



The image that continues to return to me after reading this beautiful and moving book of poems is that of Judie Rae's grandmother's hands, which could "lift a naked bird-all beak and veins-back to fragile nest." Poems about her grandmother rightfully begin Family Matters, as the woman's love for the little girl who has been entrusted to her care is a saving grace, a gift. Each of these well-crafted poems, those about Rae's children and her grandchildren as well, hold love lessons couched not in rules but revealed through compelling images and sensory details. Some of the poems had me laughing aloud, while others "warmed (my) eyes with tears," to recall another of the author's simple and lovely images.

Judy Bebelaar, author of And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown, and Walking Across the Pacific